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Colonialism

Norway Farmed Salmon Industry Accused Of ‘Food Colonialism’

February 4, 2024 Michaela Herrmann, DeSmog. , , , , , , , ,
Producers in Norway, the world’s top supplier of farmed salmon, are pushing up to four million people in West Africa into food insecurity and depriving them of critical nutrients, according to a new report. Published by food and farming campaign group Feedback Global, the research states that major farmed fish and aquafeed producers – including European transnational companies Mowi, BioMar, Cargill, and Skretting – are between them extracting nearly two million tonnes of whole, wild fish annually from the world’s oceans, according to 2020 data. The majority of these small, highly nutritious fish are being turned into fish oil, a key ingredient in salmon aquaculture feed, as well as fishmeal.

Noura Erakat: Colonial Law And The Erasure Of Palestine

February 3, 2024 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , ,
In Palestine, the law has been used as a tool of oppression to legitimize and advance the dispossession of the Palestinian people for more than a century. From the theft of Palestinian land by legal mechanisms to the non-recognition of Palestinians as a people with the inalienable right of self-determination, the law is yet another weapon wielded against the Palestinian people by Israel and its patrons. Activist, attorney, and Rutgers University professor Noura Erakat joins The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the use of lawfare against Palestine and her new book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.

Missing Links In Textbook History: Colonialism

January 19, 2024 Jim Mamer, Scheer Post. , , , ,
In 1958 I learned that the British established colonies in Eastern North America. I was in 5th grade. In trying to recall how and what names, dates and locations were taught, it proves to be a jumble. But I remember that a lot happened in the early 17th century, including the founding of most of those British colonies. I remember being told about Pilgrims and their struggle for religious freedom. I also remember learning that there were Indigenous tribes living in the areas colonized, but the clear implication was that a lot of the land was vacant. I remember learning about indentured servants, but I don’t remember learning anything about the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in 1619.

Israel Cannot Be A Colonial Power And A Democracy

January 6, 2024 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. , , , , , ,
Israel’s status as a bona fide democracy is often taken to be a self-evident truth, but a more critical look at the history and reality of Zionism calls this into question. After all, how can a democracy exist in a country constitutionally defined as an ethnostate that can only exist through the suppression and gradual elimination of its Others? Israeli historian Ilan Pappé joins The Chris Hedges Report for a discussion on Israel as an inherently colonial, and therefore anti-democratic, project. Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.

Unthanksgiving Day: A Celebration Of Indigenous Resistance To Colonialism

November 20, 2023 Shannon Toll, The Conversation. , , ,
Each year on the fourth Thursday of November, when many people start to take stock of the marathon day of cooking ahead, Indigenous people from diverse tribes and nations gather at sunrise in San Francisco Bay. Their gathering is meant to mark a different occasion – the Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving Sunrise Ceremony, an annual celebration that spotlights 500 years of Native resistance to colonialism in what was dubbed the “New World.” Held on the traditional lands of the Ohlone people, the gathering is a call for remembrance and for future action for Indigenous people and their allies.

The Issue Is Not Racism But The Pan European White Supremacist Colonial/Capitalist Patriarchy!

November 17, 2023 Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
The modern concept of race and what became known as racism can only be understood within the context of the European colonial project at the center of the larger project called modernity. When the people who eventually became known as Europeans spilled out of “Europe” into what became the “Americas,” their encounter with the Indigenous peoples of this region was already informed by a racialized consciousness, as the great Black revolutionary theorist Cedric Robinson helped us to understand. Informed by this consciousness that combined the tendency toward dehumanization based on race and a crude, strange, violent religious framework called “Christianity,” the European barbarians engaged in a genocidal rampage across this region and many others across the globe.

Comics About The Commons: ‘Seeing Beyond The Map’

November 14, 2023 David Bollier. , , ,
In a novel popularization about commons, the Centre for Future Natures at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, has published a compelling set of comics, "Seeing Beyond the Map." The two comics, presented in the style of an old-style pulp comic book, are an amusing  educational experiment in alternative cartography.  The stories unpack many mystifications about the commons, including the so-called "tragedy" parable, while offering a more accurate conceptual map and narrative of the commons. (You can download the 14-page PDF here.)  In a blog post introducing the comics, Amber Huff, Principal Investigator at Future Natures, writes, "Maps tell stories about relationships.

Without Hamas, Gaza Would Still Not Be Free

November 3, 2023 Jonathan Cook, Consortium News. , , , ,
It shocks me that in my threads I keep coming across variations of the following tweet: “The Palestinians have it within them to rise up against Hamas to free themselves. Or Hamas can willingly surrender. Two real choices there.” This view isn’t just being promoted in bad faith by Israeli apologists. It seems to resonate with ordinary people who presumably know very little about the histories either of Palestine or of settler colonial movements such as the Zionist movement that founded Israel. So let’s delve briefly into both. First, settler colonial movements are distinguished from standard colonialism — like British rule in India — by the fact that the settler population wishes not just to steal the native population’s resources but to replace the native population itself.

The Unspoken Colonial Contradiction Of Haiti

November 1, 2023 Erica Caines and Austin Cole, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , ,
Today Haiti is suffering from both a crisis of imperialism and the effects of a longstanding history of foreign occupation, placing the country back into a pre-revolution colonial situation, as The Black Alliance For Peace Haiti/ Americas Team has noted. Since 1915, following the murder of Haitian President Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, Haiti’s sovereignty has been placed into question with continuing foreign occupation forces and neocolonial heads of state. When the United States invaded Haiti with 300 troops on July 28, 1915, they stayed for 19 years. During that time, the U.S. rewrote the Haitian constitution and installed a puppet president; Wall Street consolidated their near-monopoly control of Haiti’s finances, banking, and industry, and Haitians lived under martial law that mirrored U.S. Jim Crow policies.

All Black Feminisms Ain’t Created Equal

September 28, 2023 Erica Caines, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
My initial introduction to radical feminist politics was through convoluted, often antagonistic online discourses, where past works of radical feminists are engaged, discussed, and ultimately flattened. Audre Lorde has always been among the most popularly referenced Black feminists cited online, for example, but always for her gender critical analysis (which could be used as fodder in heated discourse) and never for her anti-imperialist analysis. It’s much easier for one to gain attention and retweets through cherrypicking her words on gender and sexuality, but much less popular to dive into her works on the imperialist U.S. invasion of her homeland Grenada whose revolution emphasized the role of women in society, for example.

Poverty Is Growing In Puerto Rico Under US Colonialism

September 27, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , ,
Poverty in Puerto Rico, under US colonialism, is getting worse over time, not better. More than two-fifths of Puerto Ricans suffer from poverty, and nearly three-fifths of Puerto Rican children live in poor households. In 2022, the poverty rate in the colonized US “territory” grew from 40.5% to 41.7%, according to US Census Bureau data. A staggering 57.6% of Puerto Rican children live in poverty. And 38.8% of families are below the poverty line. Poverty has been growing in Puerto Rico even at a time when more people are working. The unemployment rate fell from 13.1% to 9.9% in 2022, while poverty got worse.

American Exceptionalism And Its Consequences

September 9, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Scheer Post. , , ,
Let me begin with an observation that I think is obvious even if it is rarely noted. It is this: There is no separating politics and psychology. This seems to me an especially useful truth as we explore our topic this evening, and I go to Fromm and Jung to explain it. People, individuals, make societies, but societies, just as truly, make individuals. This evening I will look to the latter side of this matter more than the former. Americans have made America, true enough, but I am more interested for now in how America has made Americans—how it has shaped the psychology that defines Americans—the consciousness that marks them out, indeed, so distinctly from others.

Coup In Gabon: Franc Zone Continues To Crumble

September 1, 2023 Steve Lalla, Orinoco Tribune. , , , ,
Military leaders in Gabon have taken power, placing the president under house arrest following disputed elections. The military takeover follows recent coups d’état in the former French colonies of Niger (earlier this year), Burkina Faso (2022), Mali (2020 and 2021), and Guinea (2021). Gabon’s military was likely inspired by the recent military coup in Niger, which France and its allies, including Nigeria and the US, have been unable to overturn. “I think, obviously, the soldiers have been inspired by the coups in other countries, beginning primarily in 2020 with Mali,” said Milton Allimadi of Black Star News.

New Film: Colonialism And Capitalism Are Decimating Our Forests

August 28, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Award-winning producer, activist and artist Eleanor Goldfield has a new documentary out, To The Trees, about forest defense in the Redwood Forests of Northern California. Beautifully filmed and composed, Goldfield shows the decimation of our old-growth forests and efforts to stop this crime while placing the struggle in the broader context of colonialism and capitalism. Clearing the FOG speaks with Goldfield about how she connected with forest defenders, the experience of making the film and what we can all do to protect our last remaining Redwoods, the giants of carbon sequestration. Aptly named, To The Trees will inspire you to embrace and protect our forests.

Dilemmas Of Humanity Conference Calls For Pan-African, Working Class Power

August 20, 2023 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , ,
The world’s attention will be on the city of Johannesburg next week as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa will convene the 15th annual BRICS Summit (August 22-24). Organized under the banner of “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development, and Inclusive Multilateralism,” this year’s conference could potentially usher in a new era of cooperation among the global South. Over 40 countries have expressed their interest in joining BRICS, including 23 countries that have officially applied for membership. Meanwhile, leaders from 71 countries across the Global South have been invited to participate in the upcoming conference’s dialogues.
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