Thoughts on Empire
So….
The history of colonial expansion can be summed up in fairly simple terms.
We clobbered any unfortunate indigenous nations which came within our reach mercilessly; taking gold, silver, land or any other commodity [including human] pretty much at will. Those that could be persuaded to serve, generally through lies and propaganda, might be spared death for a life of servitude. The great Cross of Christianity came in very useful too, instilling fear not only for this lifetime but well into the hereafter, for all eternity in fact. We forced opium onto China to trade for tea, enslaving millions through addiction. Our genteel classes in their newly aspirational lifestyles also of course liked to take sugar in their tea. So there they were dressed in fine silks, cotton and lace covering their whalebone corsets; all the while growing rich on the proceeds of the trade in these various commodities, mindless of the misery inflicted on those nations and cultures they were so successfully exploiting. The hegemony which supported the slave trade was odious enough, until it was exposed for the abomination it was. Reform when it came only reluctantly, made palatable with the sweetener of compensation paid out to slave owners, not to the true victims of the lucrative and ruthless exploitation. Criminalising the poor as a replacement for slave labour another trick, whilst the ‘better classes’ covetously enclosed and took possession of common lands. Transportation proved the biggest wheeze of all. Convict colonies were a means of imposing hierarchical structures, always set up to the disadvantage of Indigenous communities. These hierarchies were reinforced by the convicts themselves, as European’s their status automatically ranked as superior to the subhuman categorisation designated to indigenes.
It didn’t end there. Today’s young, invariably poor males, especially those identified by ethnic groups, are institutionally criminalised and principally for trade in prohibited substances. Ironically these are generally the very same substances which our ‘great’ empires were built on in the first place. This social trap compounded by the gang culture etc. that goes with it.
Who is the criminal? Where is the moral authority? Or should we just call it out for what it is, as just a ruse to keep the proletariat in their place?
So there it is, in a nutshell. Did I miss anything?
sense seeker 