Decolonizing the Colonizer Societies

Sat Oct 8 20:01:45 2011

Centuries of colonization formed the colonizer societies, their worldview and thinking, trade relations, laws, institutions, technologies, as well as their spiritual and social development. Without decolonizing themselves, the colonizer societies remain what they are. We colonizer societies will have to decolonize in order to overcome the vicious spiral of moral, spiritual and social degradation and hold the escalating destruction of the earth.

The colonizer societies depend on colonial relations to continue their way of life. Members of colonizer societies want to keep whatever privileges they got, and therefor accept permanent war against and mass extermination of the lesser peoples. The culture of death and destruction is not exclusively European, but for many centuries dominated by Whites and their assumption of Supremacy.

American Indian scholar/activist Ward Churchill sees the beginning of globalization in the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Carribean. Ever since, European expansion devastated many lands, and subjugated or exterminated its peoples. The contradiction between colonizer and colonized is fundamental. It cannot be bridged and transformed into a relation based on mutual respect and trust without first being resolved. Only through anti-colonial struggle can the colonial divide be narrowed.

The need for decolonization

After formally releasing their colonies into 'independence', the colonizer societies regarded colonialism as history. Yet no sanitized rhetoric can hide the continuity of colonial attitudes and relations. And no 'independence' will be real without breaking the financial, economic, legal, political and cultural dependencies from the colonizer societies, and without organizing efficient defense against colonial aggressions.

People of the colonizer societies generally try hard to avoid accepting any personal responsibility for the colonial relations, on which their way of life depends. They don't want to be colonizers, yet enjoy the resulting privileges nevertheless.

Political 'left' thinking tends to emphasize class relations. Class contradictions are seen as fundamental. Colonial relations are subordinated, to be resolved by building a classless society. The problem is not between peoples (colonizer and colonized), but between the overwhelming majority of people and the capitalist ruling class, or the capitalist 'system'.

Globalizers in general, and the social justice and humanitarian globalizers in particular, see themselves primarily as individuals, as if separated from the society or communities they belong to. They feel entitled to speak for all humanity, regardless of all contradictions between the many different peoples.

The colonial divide is thus rationalized away, which seems just another way of the colonizers to defend White Supremacy and related privileges. Like sexist and racist relations, colonial relations neither depend on any particular form of government nor a particular economic and financial system.

A discourse based upon listening and respect cannot happen, when one side is hopelessly disadvantaged, and they and their land exploited to allow the privileged to continue their failed way of life. Centuries of violent expansionism brought death and destruction of the earth and its peoples like only told in some origin stories. The colonial mindset and practice of the European missionaries, traders, settlers and troops spread like a hightly infectious disease constantly adjusting itself to changing conditions and circumstances.

The decolonization of the colonizer societies must be based on the fundamental rejection of White Supremacy. We must learn to understand how colonial thinking and colonizing activities formed our societies, the sciences, technology, trade, politics, production and communication, laws and rules. We can learn from the colonized, who we are. But we cannot depend on the colonized to decolonize us. Our societies must become independent from colonial relations to be able to regain some level of self-determination as peoples.

Continuing centuries of death and destruction

Europeans, including our diaspora in the USA/Canada/Australia/Israel, form the core group of the Democratic Totalitarian Societies (DTS), claiming moral and social superiority over all others. This claim is rarely spoken, and is often even denied, but nevertheless fundamental to European civilization and thinking.

White Supremacy is the basis of European colonial thinking, the claim of entitlement to loot, invade and occupy lesser peoples and take their lands, enlightened with whatever rhetoric and ideologies. To raid a foreign land, and to violently impose order from outside, is a centuries old tradition of the European great powers. Many histories have been told and taught to generations of children to justify unprovoked aggression against another people somewhere far away.

The DTS, 'we', claim the right to set 'global' standards for all to follow, and also reserve for us the right to assault and destroy countries upon dirty agreements among the dominant Great Powers in their fights for access and influence in an increasingly volatile and adversarial world. The DTS governments, developing the Global Totalitarian Order (GTO), try to establish NATO as global enforcer of submissive relations.

European populations complicit

In 1991, when Iraq was bombed with 88,500 t explosives, and during the following years, while hundreds of thousands people in Iraq died as a result of the blockade, embargo and sanctions, only very few people even sporadically protested against this blatant mass extermination of people and the destruction of a nation.

A large majority of the European peoples supported, or at least accepted, military aggression against Yugoslavia. They watched silently how their governments worked to destroy Yugoslavia and to overthrow President Milosevic. Likewise, building upon years of demonizing propaganda, the bombing, invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was widely supported.

There was near uniform agreement among the peoples of the Democratic Totalitarian Societies (DTS) about the basic assumptions and main propaganda line, like 'X is evil and must be removed from power'. Disagreement was limited to the means and methods used.

One country after the other has been and is being intervened by various means, through the IMF/WB/IFIs, through Multi and Transnational Corporations (M/TNCs), through NGOs and governmental 'aid' agencies, through public relation firms and private military service providers, through foundations and dirty monies financing, equipping, training and marketing 'opposition' parties and 'rebel' forces, or through 'civil society' groups. These interventions frequently escalate into wars, organized and manipulated to throw countries into a spiral of death and destruction. Countries may be sanctioned and embargoed, isolated, bombarded, invaded and occupied. The goal is to force them to submit unter a new colonial order installed and imposed by foreign agencies and with foreign troops.

Updated colonial ideology

Growing masses of people today spend more of their time doing the same thing: they look at screens, use input devices to interact with machines, speak into microphones, and listen to loudspeakers. Input from the few dominant news agencies and media channels reach more people more often. They can largely set the frame of discourse and manipulate public opinion. While both quantity and availability of information increased dramatically, the quality of information is mostly low, and particularly the assessment of integrity and reliability became impossible, at least for the ordinary user. In general, the spreading of digital communication has dramatically increased the uniformity of ideas and significantly narrowed the frame of acceptable divergence.

Moreover, the very means to control people and their lives have become highly desireable consumer goods. Privacy issues are easily sidelined and people nowadays volunteer all kinds of information. Mobile devices reveal their position, their relations with others become more transparent, and their digitally communicated thoughts are being tracked.

Colonial ideology has been updated in terms of individual freedoms, human rights and democracy. NGOs take the role of informants and missionaries, while NATO bombs people into misery and chaos as their basic means of reproduction, communication and control are put under escalating stress. With air supremacy quickly established, the attacked can only helplessly watch how bombs and missiles destroying their infrastructure, production and storage facilities, hospitals and neighborhoods.

The NATO assault on Libya, and militarily forced regime change in the Ivory Coast and Libya, was largely supported by the peoples living in the colonizer societies. While the anti-colonial struggles largely failed to break the chains or foreign hegemony and control, both colonial thinking and practice have been fully restored to their previous glorious past.

NATO tries to install colonial regime in Libya

Close to 10,000 bombing raids and scores of missiles brought misery and death to the majority of Libyans. For example, the electric power supply and public water distribution system in Tripoli was bombed out of operation. Medical supplies were running short with hospitals being overwhelmed by victims of the war.

And yet NATO needed massive special forces and covered operations on the ground, supported by mercenaries from private military service providers, to establish control over strategic parts of Tripoli.

All this death and destruction to prevent Qaddafi from restoring order by militarily defeating the rebellion in March 2011. Libya was no paradise, but oil revenues had been largely spent on development projects and public services instead of just filling the pockets of the ruling elite. Libyan wages attracted many foreign workers. And in more recent years, the government used a significant part of its revenues to support the project of African unity through various channels, like the African Union, integration and communication projects, or the sponsoring of an African Monetary Fund.

Libya did not want, and did actively resist European expansion, although many compromises needed to be made. Africa begins on its northern frontier to Europe, and Africa can only be defended collectively by Africans in unity against the colonizers. Yet African governments and peoples have instead been divided and in much confrontation among each others. There is no unity against European colonial aggression among African peoples. Narrow self-interests dominate politics and colonial collaborators are easily recruited.

Global Totalitarian Order

Young people are usually attracted to the fashions and trends of the day. They are still very much in flux. That makes them the favorite target group of marketing agencies and propaganda campaigns. The expansion of mass media and digital communication has created a situation, where worldwide propaganda began to form the views and beliefs of a critical mass of people, especially the younger ones. Global propaganda is a necessary condition for the Global Totalitarian Order (GTO).

The GTO means to replace the national sovereignty of states under the polar world order (the 'Cold War'), although also during that time frequently violated by the usual suspects. Under the GTO, the national sovereignty of states depends on their ability to defend themselves against foreign interventions, and to establish a credible deterrence against aggression.

Most countries have no way to defend themselves successfully against foreign intervention. They cannot prevail against global media campaigns and war propaganda. They are militarily hopelessly outgunned. They face foreign imposed terms of trade, and usually from a poor financial position. Foreign investors control vital parts of their economies.

The dominant military power of the GTO is the USA, with its worldwide military infrastructure and access. Their junior partners in old Europe recently brought some of their new 'battlegroups' online and bombed Libya as best as they could. Likewise Canada and Australia continuously expand their military contributions to occupations and aggressions.