The call for international justice

In a previous blog, `Self-assertion and the will to dominate’ , I had discussed how, in the last millenium, a handful of nations sought to colonise, dominate, enslave and subjugate the rest of the world, plundering the resources of the exploited nations and leaving them poor, underdeveloped, illiterate and divided.

The story of exploitation happened across five continents. And began with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, to the Ottomans, that effectively cut off trade routes to India and Asia, from Europe. This led to the discovery of the New World – the Americas, and the rapacious destruction of ancient American civilisation by European powers.

In fact, Europe, hungry for resources and spices, didn’t seek only trade, but the territory and wealth of the hapless victims of the new lands, and of Asia. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean, the Spanish claimed the land, its peoples and its resources as the property of Spain.

King Ferdinand of Spain even wrote a letter to the inhabitants of this new world, stating that: “…Should you fail to comply, or delay maliciously in so doing, we assure you that with the help of God we shall use force against you, declaring war upon you from all sides and with all possible means, and we shall bind you to the yoke of the Church and of Their Highnesses; we shall enslave your persons, wives and sons, sell you or dispose of you as the King sees fit; we shall seize your possessions and harm you as much as we can as disobedient and resisting vassals. And we declare you guilty of resulting deaths and injuries…”

That was the harsh ethic of the conquerors, who gave the new lands not only the cross and an imposed foreign religion , but slavery, poverty and death. When the Spanish landed in the Americas, the native American population numbered 50 million. At the end of the imperial age, this number had fallen to 2 million. The indigenous population plummeted by an estimated 80% in the first century-and-a-half following Christopher Columbus’ voyages, primarily through the spread of disease, forced labour and slavery for resource extraction. This has arguably been the first large-scale act of genocide in the last millenium.

Spain, Portugal, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium partook in this unholy, wilful, and utterly mercenary endeavour of dominating the rest of the world by sheer gun power, that gave them the advantage over native armies.

In India, that was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, and was annexed in 1757, the self-seeking British reduced a thriving economy, that accounted for 23 per cent of the World GDP before the colonial era, to utter poverty, with a less than 3 per cent share of global GDP, when India got its independence.

In Africa, the last of the continents to be colonised, territory was divided between these greedy colonial powers, to prevent war between themselves, with utter disregard for ethnic, tribal and cultural fundamentals. The revolting slave trade, and the apartheid that followed, was also a legacy of these callous colonial powers. Not to mention, the rape and plunder of Africa, by western mining companies all through modern history, with no respect for the land, its peoples and its environment.

The US is no less culpable of heinous crimes. The advance of the thirteen original states into the West, saw native US populations decimated and was representative of a rapine that can hardly give the US much pride in the freedom, equality and justice that its Constitution upholds. Yet, literature written by the victors, glorifies the villains and makes the victims seem like the goons, as was witnessed in the era of Hollywood westerns.

The US’ `Rambo-ism’ in Afghanistan and Iraq, in recent times, prompted evil regimes like the Taliban and the Islamic State to take form, with ramifications of depredation for the entire world. Today, the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is no more a manifestation of the spurious and specious deal the Americans made in cahoots with the extremist organisation, with little regard for the welfare of the Afghan people.

The West likes to remind us of how evil the Nazis were, while ignoring the historical crimes it committed against humanity. Nazi crimes were short-lived, while the tyranny of European powers lasted centuries. And their colonies, albeit independent now, are still recuperating from the ill-effects of the woeful imperialistic acts.

There are no reparations forthcoming from the self-righteous West. There is, indeed, no compunction. And there are not even apologies. On 11 June 2008, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, publicly apologised to Canada’s Indigenous Peoples for the atrocities committed against indigenous children in the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) system. And on 13 February 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a formal apology to members of the Aboriginal Stolen Generations on behalf of the Australian parliament. That is all the apologies that have come so far.

US President Joe Biden said, in defence of the US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, that: “Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been nation building. It was never supposed to be creating a unified, centralised democracy.” Can we forget to remind the US that the destruction of Afghanistan and the creation of the Taliban was a US legacy to that country?

The West can sit pretty within its boundaries and forget the woes of the rest of the world, as not its own. But it has a responsibility and duty to build nations that it once so wilfully foraged into. All people of the world have a right to two meals a day, a roof over their heads, education and basic healthcare. And the right to decide who will govern them. It is not a call for international socialism. For, we do need private capital formation to set the wheels of industry rolling. It is a call for international justice.