The End of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
U.S. representatives have introduced two bills that would finally end Puerto Rico’s subordinate Commonwealth status. But continued colonial rule may be the only option Congress seriously considers.
colonization
![Palestinians light torches during a protest against attacks by Israeli police with tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades on Palestinians at Masjid al-Aqsa, in Nablus, West Bank on May 11, 2021 [Mamoun Wazwaz/Anadolu Agency]](https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2021/05/11-768x512.jpg)
Palestinians Have A Right To Defend Themselves
The scenes we've been witnessing on our screens coming out of occupied Palestine this week are unprecedented.
What has been happening is a unified national uprising of the entire Palestinian people against Israeli ethnic cleansing, apartheid and aggression.
Resisting colonial fragmentation of their body politic, Palestinians from all segments of the people have risen up with one voice: enough. We are one people. In Jerusalem, in Gaza, in the West Bank.
And also in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948: in Jaffa, in Acre, in Haifa in Lydda.
It begun in Jerusalem last month, with the intensifying campaign of expulsions against the Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrar neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, and increased international attention on the plight of the people there.
175 Years Of Border Invasions
Amid renewed fear mongering about an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border, this week’s 175th anniversary of the 1846–1848 war the U.S. government instigated with Mexico is a reminder that throughout U.S. history, invasions have gone almost exclusively from north to south, not vice versa. A near-continuous series of invasions—military, political, and economic—moving from north to south has helped produce the poverty, violence, and insecurity driving people to migrate from south to north. The current humanitarian crisis at the border, with record numbers of unaccompanied minors desperately fleeing violence, insecurity and poverty, reveals the consequences of an interventionist policy that’s even older than the U.S.-Mexico war.
Debt As Colonialism
Debt, according to standard economic assumptions, emerges from a purely private exchange. Independent rational agents willingly enter into a contract in a free market. That market, in turn, sets a fair price for the debt. Freedom and fairness: these are the assumptions that underpin the common narrative about debt and indebtedness.
This essay sets out to explode these assumptions. Contrary to the common narrative, the massive dollar-denominated debts in the Global South did not arise from private exchange in a regulatory vacuum. Rather, they are the product of an international financial system carefully designed to facilitate neo-colonial extraction.
Debt is a vicious cycle that is neither free nor fair.
Overview Of Struggles And Violations Imposed Upon Palestinian Farmers, Fisherpersons, And Herders
Prior to the war of 1948, Palestinians owned approximately 78% of total area of historical Palestine, the remaining were state land “as classified by British mandate at that time. Today, in 2021, Israelis constitute 52% of total population in historical Palestine but utilizes over 85% of the total land, while Palestinians comprised 48% of population and utilize 15% of the land (PCBS, press release, 2019) this drastic change of percentages indicates actions of land theft in Palestinian lands by the “Israeli” occupation. Between the years 1967 and 2017, 200 settlements have been established, 131 of which are officially announced as towns, along with 11 neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and 16 other settlements in Gaza.
Nicaragua Rebuffs Attacks At Human Rights Hearing
Nicaragua was one of the first countries in Latin America to give constitutional rights to its
Indigenous peoples and its laws to protect their territories are justly famous (especially the
Autonomy Law of 1986 and the Demarcation Law of 2003). Some 40,000 Indigenous families live in
areas that are legally owned and administered by over 300 Indigenous communities, covering almost
a third of the country. Governmental recognition of land rights was the first step in tackling
incursions by non-Indigenous settlers from western Nicaragua and the violent conflicts they
sometimes produce.
Digital Colonialism: The Evolution Of American Empire
In 2020, billionaires made out like bandits. Jeff Bezos’s personal holdings surged from $113 to $184 billion. Elon Musk briefly eclipsed Bezos, with a net worth rise from $27 billion to over $185 billion.
For the bourgeoisie presiding over “Big Tech” corporations, life is grand.
Yet, while the expanded dominance of these corporations in their domestic markets is the subject of numerous critical analyses, their global reach is a fact seldom discussed, especially by dominant intellectuals in the American empire.
In fact, once we investigate the mechanics and numbers, it becomes apparent that Big Tech is not only global in scope, it is fundamentally colonial in character and dominated by the United States. This phenomenon is called “digital colonialism.”
We live in a world where digital colonialism now risks becoming as significant and far-reaching a threat to the Global South as classic colonialism was in previous centuries.
Black Citizenship Forum: Black Citizenship And The Problem Of ‘Coloniality’
For this edition of The Black Agenda Review’s Black Citizenship Forum, political scientist Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni writes on the impact of the ongoing legacy of colonialism – through the idea and practice of “coloniality” – on present-day citizenship in Africa. Professor Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that coloniality provides the basis and justification for European exploitation of the world and that this was done through colonial legal orders, territorial boundaries, racial hierarchies, ethnic and tribal categorizations, and class identifications. Meanwhile, formal decolonization enshrined a neocolonial African comprador class enthralled to global capital and more than willing to exploit Black labor.
Why We Say: Fuck Black History Month
Since its founding in 1920 as Negro History and Literature Week, Black History Month has served as an “annual celebration of achievements by ‘African Americans’ and a time for recognizing their central role in U.S. history.” Many of us share fond (and some unpleasant) memories of the yearly church programs, school assemblies, and essay contests all organized around that shared sense of identity and history of perseverance.
But as critical and principled Africans that know what’s happenin’, the time has passed for us to engage with what this month has come to represent. We can look as recently as the liberalizing of “Black Lives Matter” to see an example of how Black political agendas can be stolen and repurposed.
Justice In Nicaragua’s North Caribbean Coast
We have prosecuted six cases of usurpation of the communal domain of Indigenous peoples, where people who are not natives of that community misappropriate land of Indigenous peoples. So, how has this procedure been carried out? In the territories, the owners of the land, who are the presidents of the territorial governments, file a complaint with the National Police. The National Police receives these and it does all the investigative work. Then they refer the cases to the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Public Prosecutor's Office files the accusation before the Single Local Court. We have sentenced these people with the maximum penalty of 3 years and have thus sent them to the penitentiary in Managua or Matagalpa.
Nigeria: End SARS And Fanon’s Mission
‘Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it,’ wrote Frantz Fanon. It has been 60 years since Nigeria achieved its independence from Britain, yet these words reverberate both as anthem and creed in all corners of Nigeria today.
In October 2020, thousands of Nigerian youth from across the country chose to take a stand against the extra-judicial killings committed by the Nigerian police branch known as SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad). Amidst a global pandemic and an economic recession, Nigerians stood firm in their resolve to fulfill the mission of their generation – ending police violence and corrupt governance, by any means necessary and, in many cases, at the cost of their own lives.
France Vows ‘Symbolic Actions,’ No Apologies For Colonisation Of Algeria
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron received a much anticipated report on France’s 132-year colonial rule of Algeria and the war that led to Algeria’s independence in 1962, as part of an effort towards reconciliation of historical memory between the two countries.
A specialist of contemporary Algerian history, French historian Benjamin Stora, was tasked by Macron in July with “making a precise and just inventory of the progress done in France of colonisation and the Algerian war”, which remain painful subjects for millions of Algerian and French citizens nearly 60 years later.
Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune had also tasked his advisor and director of national archives, Abdelmajid Chikhi, to coordinate with Stora on the issue of memorialisation.
Do You Remember Cuba’s Dedication to Angola?
Fed up with foreign wars, Portuguese officers overthrew Prime Minister Marcello Caetano on April 25, 1974. Many former colonies had the opportunity to define their own future.
Angola had been the richest of Portuguese colonies, with major production in coffee, diamonds, iron ore and oil. Of the former colonies, it had the largest white population, which numbered 320,000 of about 6.4 million. When 90% of its white population fled in 1974, Angola lost most of its skilled labor.
Three groups juggled for power. The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), headed by Agostinho Neto was the only progressive alternative.
Energix Faces Opposition In Syria And Virginia
In early December hundreds of Syrians gathered to protest the Israeli company Energix as it began construction of massive wind turbines in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Energix is also facing growing community opposition across Virginia as it lobbies to secure permits to build solar energy utilities on mostly agricultural parcels with cultural, forest and natural land designations. In Golan Heights, Energix freely wields the power of Israeli police and courts to transcend community opposition. In Virginia, Energix steamrolls community opponents empowered by massive federal and state subsidies and a curious state agency – the Virginia Israel Advisory Board – that exclusively promotes Israeli business ventures.
It Is Time For The One State Solution To Go Mainstream
The “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” has often been presented as one of the most intractable in modern world history.
But one reason for this is precisely that it has been wrongly analyzed as a conflict and thus the “solutions” offered and the “peace processes” for getting there fail.
This is not a conflict. There are not two sides fighting over some issue that can be resolved through technical negotiations and compromise. Rather, Zionism was – and is – a settler-colonial project.
Jewish settlers arrived in Palestine from Europe with the intention of taking over the country and making it their own. Like all settler movements they came equipped with a narrative of why the country actually belonged to them, and they pursued their claim to entitlement unilaterally.