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Colonialism

Joint Submission To UN Special Rapporteur Over Israel’s Settler-Colonial, Apartheid Regime

On 30 April 2021, the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council (PHROC); Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies; and Habitat International Coalition – Housing and Land Rights Network submitted a joint submission to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Mr Michael Lynk, laying out the framework for the illegality of Israeli colonial settlements, which are key to Israel’s settler-colonial and apartheid regime, and analysing their impact on the Palestinian people’s rights. The joint submission is pursuant to a call for input ahead of the Special Rapporteur’s report on the issue, which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in its 47th Session (21 June – 9 July 2021).

COVID-19, The Climate Crisis, And Mutual Aid

After COVID-19 struck in spring 2020, the absence of a concerted federal response prompted people across the country to begin self-organizing everything from food distribution to sewing squads to shelter. That work continues today, drawing on a long tradition. “Mutual aid,” a concept coined by the Russian naturalist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, refers to the principles of cooperation, and of people joining together to help each other. It ran counter to the then-hegemonic Darwinian theories emphasizing competition and survival of the fittest. Kropotkin did not deny the role of competition, but he argued that the cooperative spirit has gone under-examined.

As A Native American, Here’s What I Want You To Know About Thanksgiving

Native Americans don’t just live on reservations, we live in cities, and we live internationally. I grew up in the Silicon Valley of California. I was born in the city and have lived here my whole life, as an “Urban Native.” My grandfather moved to California from Mohawk territory in the 1950s after he served in Korea, and we have all lived in Sunnyvale ever since. The challenges I grew up around were different from my Oyaté (family) out on the reservations. It is easier to lose our sense of culture living among so many established settler communities.

Energy Transitions And Colonialism

The year 2020 has seen an unprecedented oil price crash, causing a shock to the fossil fuel industry. The impact has been brutal among oil companies, especially in the high-cost US shale oil sector. As for oil-producing African countries, such as Angola, Algeria, Libya, and Nigeria, more economic strain has been added to their economies with mounting budget deficits and a hemorrhaging of their foreign exchange reserves. Against this backdrop, some analysts have rushed to speculate that the pandemic could kill the oil industry and help save the environment.

On Contact: Origin Of White Supremacy

On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the origin of white supremacy and how it plays out in contemporary society with historian Gerald Horne. Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, Texas. Horne’s new book is ‘The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century’.

UK And Hong Kong: Mutually Reinforced Ignorance

Three years ago, I visited Old Supreme Court Building in Hong Kong, also known as The Court of Final Appeal, together with my friend, an Afghan-British lawyer, who was on a personal mission of ‘re-discovering Asia.’ Coming from a prominent, highly educated family in Afghanistan, my friend was extremely well aware that both the United States and the United Kingdom thoroughly destroyed her country during the recent occupation. In fact, under the NATO boots, Afghanistan became the poorest country in Asia, with the lowest life expectancy. But after the long journey through Asia, somehow, she became nostalgically attached to Hong Kong. It looked familiar. As she studied and practiced law in the U.K., The Court of Final Appeal Building looked familiar and reassuring to her.

To Abolish The Medical Industrial Complex

The past six months have highlighted the fight that Black people are in against state violence, both in the form of policing and the US healthcare system. Though the ruling class cries that the coronavirus pandemic is “the great equalizer ,” the virus continues to demonstrate exactly who our capitalist health-care system was designed to keep alive. So far, across the country, about 42% of coronavirus deaths have been Black people , even though they were only about 21% of the population in the areas analyzed. In Louisiana , over 70% of people who died were Black (despite Black people being only 32% of the population). Along with high rates of death, countless stories have emerged about Black people turned away from hospitals, struggling to access testing, and being disproportionately arrested or ticketed for not following public health guidelines.

How Palestine Advocates Can Support Black Struggle

Black people are one of the first and largest victims of Western colonialism and racial capitalism. We have never received justice for 500 years of racist violence and exploitation. The US and most Western countries built their empires through profits from the Atlantic slave trade. As an illegitimate settler colony that was built on the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population and enslavement of Africans, the US requires the continuous subjugation of Black and Indigenous people to maintain its imperial domination abroad. Accordingly, the greatest internal threat to the US empire is that of a Black revolution. This is why the last real moment of Black revolution was so viciously attacked and destroyed between the late 1960s and early 1980s.

How The Weapons Of White Supremacy Wiped Out The Afro Argentines

The easiest way to understand a complex system like white supremacy is to see that system in action. When it comes to the multifaceted system that is white supremacy, we should look at a nation that has used the weapons of white supremacy to remove Blacks from their population: Argentina In 80 years, Argentina reduced the Black population from almost half of the overall population to less than 4 percent using very specific weapons of white supremacy. According to records, African slaves first arrived in Argentina in the 1500s. They joined millions of other slaves across the Americas who were forcibly removed from their homelands to toil in Argentina under white masters. Even though there are an estimated 1 million Black Argentines alive today, few claim Black as their race because Africans are perceived to be “undeveloped and uncivilized”. 

On Contact: Colonial War On Palestine

On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses the long, disingenuous role the USA has played in the Israel-Palestine conflict with Professor Rashid Khalidi. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. His new book is ‘The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance.’

The History Of Hong Kong, Britain’s Colonial Legacy. Fast Forward To 2019

The reason Hong Kong was seized by England, on orders of Queen Victoria, was that Sassoon needed a logistics, warehousing, and distribution base for his opium operations. Similarly, the founding of HSBC, an event requiring permission of the monarch, was for the handling and laundering of Sassoon’s drug money, an expertise in which the bank still specialises today. The standard narrative tells us the HSBC was founded by Scotsman Sir Thomas Sutherland, who wanted a bank operating on “sound Scottish banking principles”, but that’s historical Photoshopping.

Protectors Of Mauna Kea Are Fighting Colonialism, Not Science

Thousands of Native Hawaiians and their supporters have been congregating since July 15 at the base of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano and mountain on the island of Hawaii. Known in Hawaiian as the kia’i, the protectors—a term the group prefers to “protesters”—seek to deter construction of the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere. Business owners and state officials promise the telescope will provide jobs, educational opportunities and high-resolution astronomical imagery.

Puerto Rico’s Crisis Is Not Only Puerto Rican

In the rush to replace disgraced and discredited Governor Ricardo Rossello a  astruggle broke out questioning the appointment of Pedro Pierluisi as his replacement and on August 7 the Puerto Rico Supreme Court ruled Pierluisi was unconstitutionally appointed  and he was replaced by the Secretary of Justice, Wanda Vazquez making her the Puerto Rico’s third governor in five days. But this is not the most important aspect of such events. With a governor or without him, the whole world knows the United States is who really rules in Puerto Rico, that power which is now shaking as a result of its own contradictions.

Monroeism Is The Other Side Of Jim Crow, The Side Facing South

This Forum of São Paulo of Washington DC marks a significant step forward in building North-South solidarity on behalf of economic and social justice throughout the hemisphere and respect for the sovereign equality of nations. The Forum comes on the heels of the defense of the Venezuelan Embassy by the Embassy Protection Collective. It takes place amid growing nationwide direct action by the NeverAgainIsNow movement and allies to shut down the concentration camps and restore dignified treatment of Central American refugees...

Notes From A Caribbean Colony In Turmoil

From what I gather from the US press coverage, the recent events here have been portrayed as something close to a popular insurrection that got rid of an arrogant, inept and corrupt colonial governor. A note is added to the effect, a kind of wishful thinking, that if only Trump could be dispatched via similar methods. Colonial realities are seldom so simple, though. For one, the power struggles are different, in that these play out as what closely resemble real conspiracy schemes. Players are identified in terms of power blocks, such as the US military, Wall Street banks, or the US Navy in the more recent Vieques episodes.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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