let us compare colonialisms

Let us compare mythologies. Let us look at the stories we tell ourselves. Then we’ll rip apart the pretty gardens like hungry dogs looking for rabbits. I’m tired of the tea parties.

The MYTH OF EMPTINESS. The colonist got there first and the plains were a vast no-man’s land, inhabited only by tasty animals, shiny rocks, and the odd grunting, under-dressed soul. No matter that kingdoms had already risen and fallen, that rich languages were already splintered into dozens of dialects, that religions flourished and customs were entrenched, that economies and trade existed. No matter. No matter because the colonizers only saw emptiness, only heard the chatter of their future selves. Listen:

Henry Morton Stanley, African “explorer”: “Unpeopled country! What a settlement one could have in this valley! Fancy a church spire rising where that tamarind rears its dark crown of foliage, and think how well a score or two of pretty cottages would look instead of those thorn clumps and gum trees!”

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893), U.S. president: “What a prodigious growth this English race, especially the American branch of it, is having! How soon will it subdue and occupy all the wild and empty parts of this continent and of the islands adjacent.”

Golda Meir, early founder of Israel and Prime Minister: "There was no such thing as Palestinians ... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist."

The MYTH OF CIVILIZATION. Because the natives are savages, backwards, uncouth, uneducated, uncivilized. Because the colonizer sees hope in the future when all may bask in a shared decorum, his decorum. Because the native is less than human. They need us!

Ibn Khaldun, Arab historian (1332-1406): "...the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals..."

16th century Dutch pamphlet about Indonesia: “These folk live like beasts without any reasonableness and the women be also as common. And the men hath conversation with the women whether or not she is his sister, his mother, his daughter or any other kin. And the women be very hot and disposed to lechery.”

Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher (1770-1831): “The African exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. There is nothing harmonious with humanity in this type of character.”

Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister in a speech to the Knesset, 1982: "The Palestinians are beasts walking on two legs."

The MYTH OF DIVINE GUIDANCE. They are here by the grace of God, whose hand guides them to greatness and glory. God smiles on their exploits, blesses their deeds and rewards with economic and military success. Right.

William Gilpin, Governor of Colorado Territory, 1846: "The destiny of the American People is to subdue the continent, to unite the world in one social family. ... Divine task! Immortal mission! America leads the host of nations as they ascend to this order of civilization. ...the industrial conquest of the world."

John Winthrop, Governor Massachussetts, 1630: “For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world.”

Golda Meir, 1971: "This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."

The MYTH OF HOW IT HAPPENED. They’d rather you believe it just materialized. That the land opened up and welcomed them like a harlot. But even harlots have stories.

Olaudah Equiano, African slave (17-45-1797): “I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I were sound by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me...The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was too crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us... This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable."

Captain Silas Soule, Sand Creek Massacre, 1864: "The massacre lasted six or eight hours...it was hard to see little children on their knees, have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized. One Squaw with her two children, were on their knees, begging for their lives, of a dozen soldiers, within ten feet of them all firing -- when one succeeded in hitting the Squaw in the thigh, when she took a knife out and cut the throats of both children, and then killed herself. They were all scalped. They were horribly mutilated. One woman was cut open, and a child taken out of her, and scalped. White Antelope, War Bonnet, and a number of others had Ears and Privates cut off. Squaw’s snatches were cut out for trophies. You would think it impossible for white men to butcher and mutilate human beings as they did there, but every word I told you is the truth, which they do not deny."

David Ben-Gurion, Israeli Prime Minister, 1948: "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”

David Ben-Gurion, 1978: "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Prime Minister, 1988: "The Palestinians will be crushed like grasshoppers, heads smashed against the boulders and walls."

Mythologizing continues. The Canadian government drapes itself in native headdress. The falafel is Israel's official food. George Bush continues to celebrate "Columbus' bold desire to push the horizons..."

Nina Simone, I am sure, would have described it otherwise.