Rembering the Genocide/Erasure of Natives in Americas - On Indigenous People's Day

[Fleetinglife]

Quote: ''celebrating "Columbus day" is like celebrating "Heinrich Himmler day". he was one of the worst genocidal mass murderers in history. from the opening pages of Howard Zinn's brilliant people's history of the United States:

[Fleetinglife]

Just now, Fleetinglife said:

Quote: ''celebrating "Columbus day" is like celebrating "Heinrich Himmler day". he was one of the worst genocidal mass murderers in history. From the opening pages of Howard Zinn's brilliant people's history of the United States:

I found this preview of the book online but it got me so curious and disheartened at the same time when I read it that I consider seeing and finding a copy of one here and buying one eventually just to read for myself in my free time (since it reads like a good novel - what's even worse) the extent of the carrying out the planned massacre, extermination, and cleansing of the natives in Americas and its changing reasoning and motives from the European settler colonialists during its 400 years approx time of being carried out:

Here is also an excerpt from Chomsky on the matter from Twitter handle @zeisquirrel:

 

 

[Vrubel]

8 hours ago, Fleetinglife said:

Quote: ''celebrating "Columbus day" is like celebrating "Heinrich Himmler day". he was one of the worst genocidal mass murderers in history.

People celebrate Columbus because he stands symbol for the spirit of pioneering and discovery. (with emphasis on symbol). He was after all the man that connected two worlds, that's huge in world history. We know that Columbus was very stubbornly ignorant, bigoted, exploitative and a slaver (as was the norm at the time) but you cannot really accuse him of genocide because he never intended to exterminate a race. 90% of America's population died of European disease, which is a mindboggling tragedy even surpassing Europe's plagues. 

You can blame the Europeans for going to America and bringing the diseases but in a sense, the native Americans were the victims of history and just plain human progress and evolution. European settlers not coming to America to form colonies and ultimately nation-states at the expense of the natives is something that never could have happen knowing the ambitions, struggles and worldviews of the people at the time. 

Also the Apache, Blackhawk helicopter names are mostly out of respect for the warrior spirit of the respective natives. Intrigue and fascination along with bigoted racism was also part of the European relations with the natives. 

The native Americans truly deserve our compassion and understanding for their struggles and tragic loss but framing them as just victims and to over-fucus on the political correctness of semantics does not do justice to their role in history as fearsome tribes that fought the Europeans as well as against each other. 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by Vrubel

[Bojan V]

@Vrubel

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

...just plain human progress and evolution.

 

Wow. The colonisation and murder of Native Americans was NOT "just plain human progress and evolution"!

 

[Fleetinglife]

3 hours ago, Vrubel said:

but you cannot really accuse him of genocide because he never intended to exterminate a race.

The intent is not the most determining factor in classifying it as genocide or an 'extermination by accident'. Genocide means that you actively facilitate the conditions, regardless of that being your prime motivating factor or just a means of achieving something else (repaying the investors the dividends on their investment in order to pay them back on their investment in you and your project or 'creating Lebensraum for your people to live on others peoples resource-rich, fertile, climate or geographically conveniently located land') by which a physical disappearance or even a cultural one to an unrecognizable point of a people from a certain area of land in the pursuit of your goal whatever that might be is possible. The Western European settler and colonialists certainly facilitated that with their aim for and treatment of the natives they encountered in order to enrich the power and wealth of themselves personally, their kingdoms, empires, nation-states, and newly independent colonies, and lastly the few of the classes of their people there who profited the most and their ruling class backers. They didn't perhaps rationally want a genocide, a total or almost significant portion of the native's population physical disseapearnce from the territories they conquered, colonized, and occupied, out of their instrumental use of natives for  their other purposes of aiding the enrichment of their wealth, power, and standing but they also benefited from the native genocide of having the land and resources on which the natives resided now being freely available to them for the continuation of the enrichment of their power and wealth and the power and wealth of themselves personally, their national empires and their class backers mostly with crumbs of that wealth accumulation going to the majority of their own people as well (in Columbus's case and time period that was landed nobility, that as you can see from Zinns example and writing in the above mentioned paragraphs of the excerpts from his book, owned 95% of Kingdom of Spains land while being 2% of the total Spanish Kingdoms populace, a part of the settler colonialists in those lands as well and the then-burgeoning merchant class which Columbus was also a part of, while most of the rest of the Spanish populace only partially benefited from that at that time).

4 hours ago, Vrubel said:

90% of America's population died of European disease, which is a mindboggling tragedy even surpassing Europe's plagues. 

A lot of them died from diseases that is true ( I don't know if this exact percentage is correct for the entire native population as a whole or if it's a just random estimate) but a lot of them died out of their cruel treatment and exploitation from the Europeans as you can read from slavery, poisoning in the silver mines they forced to work in as slaves, starvation from being cut off their lands by Europeans conquering their cities and cutting off their supply lines from the countryside to the cities and villages (you can read about that in the Inca Empire example on Wiki I think there exists a chapter dedicated to those events for example), conquest, war, and the annihilation of their communities and villages on which they depend upon for existence largely and also resulting desperations and mass suicides that occurred faced with all these cataclysmic events for their until then a way of life and survival that occurred as a direct or indirect result of the European conquest and colonizing.

4 hours ago, Vrubel said:

You can blame the Europeans for going to America and bringing the diseases

Saying they mostly died from diseases in a murky attempt to somehow dissolve or lessen their actions and responsibilities of contributing, facilitating, or carrying into action themselves as an actual strategy and plan in some instances of the genociding the natives from their land or their forced assimilation in other places in the Americas their pursuit of personal power and wealth, of the fragment of their people and of those of their countries by blaming an indirect manifested natural or biological factor as the main reason or contributor to the native's disappearance from their lands and their demise amounts to the intentional or unintentional whitewashing of history, historical responsibility and ultimately a nice excuse cop-out of absolving them from most of their responsibilities and actions that led to this - also as someone's ancestors.

 

5 hours ago, Vrubel said:

the native Americans were the victims of history and just plain human progress and evolution.

They were the victims of those who aided, abetted, and profited from their physical and cultural genocide, assimilation, expulsion, and disappearance from the land they once inhabited or no longer control or govern over. Zinn makes a mockery out of this idea of the result being human progress in his book since no historical progress is without its hidden historical contradiction driving it as being considered as such - as you can also infer from the title of one of the chapters posted here. At most in my opinion it is a historical movement with a very still not close to fully integrated grim, the big traumatic shadow hanging over behind it formed from the souls and experiences of those being the victims of and victimized by it.

5 hours ago, Vrubel said:

European settlers not coming to America to form colonies and ultimately nation-states at the expense of the natives is something that never could have happen knowing the ambitions, struggles and worldviews of the people at the time. 

Perhaps it was a historical inevitability driven by the logic of historical progression, but somewhere they at least tried to recognize their humanity and tried to assimilate them like in Latin America while they almost erased their existence and reduced them to insignificant numbers not being able to participate as a worthy constituent to be taken into serious consideration by the political powers that be or a collective ethnic power actor on the national stage in their former lands in North America for example.

Why didn't the Western European colonialists do the same erasure and genociding of natives from their lands in the places in Asia that they colonized? Here is the reason why: They wanted to use those lands as sources of colonial exploitation of the slave or the cheap labor of natives there and their resources and used them as a foothold for their global trade routes. 

But in North America and some other Latin American countries, hence the term settler colonialists nation-states, they wanted to claim the whole land for themselves there and erase any existence of a domestic indigenous and native culture and populace as any competing or disruptive factor to the founding of their entire brand new settler-colonialist civilizations on this land they claimed as whole will be staging point will be the birth and founding stone of this new project in human civilization -  nations created from scratch by the sole will, power and wealth accumulated of the European settler colonialists.

5 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Also the Apache, Blackhawk helicopter names are mostly out of respect for the warrior spirit of the respective natives. Intrigue and fascination along with bigoted racism was also part of the European relations with the natives. 

You can interpret it like that or you can interpret it as linguistical or cultural appropriation (theft from the meaning and relevance of the original language and repurposed for a different context and use) equivalent of the more civilized and technologically advanced collecting and using skulls and bones of their conquered and vanquished enemies who chose to resist and oppose them in the past to sow terror and fear in advance among their other perceived would-be threats or enemies who resist them or oppose them now by showing them as an example that those who heroically resisted them and fought them in the past have the honor of getting their high-tech military conquest, occupation, and death machines that are used to sow instant destruction and obliteration now elsewhere be named after them and that the same fate might befall upon those in the future who heroically chose to resist them and fight them now. A pang of possible irrational guilt releasing hid in the guise of token commemoration of those they conquered, massacred, and nearly erased by naming your newly high-tech advanced and developed death and destruction machines after them that destroy and massacre others as a way to honor them. I've yet to find the noble warrior spirit and what's honorable in machines designed primarily with the aim to instantly blow up your enemies to smithereens and drop-down troops aimed to enforce domination, subjugation, or control, or if they don't comply do more of the same. 

6 hours ago, Vrubel said:

but framing them as just victims and to over-fucus on the political correctness of semantics does not do justice to their role in history as fearsome tribes

Being insecure, flip-flopping, and uncomfortable around the use of terms to acknowledge or of calling the historical fact about what happened to the indigenous people and natives of North and South America a genocide, and in North America, even a genocidal project is the definition of the using the semantics of political correctness in order to avoid offending and causing discomfort to accepted cultural sensibilities, societal norms and identities formed from an environment constructed around the willful denial, lessening, sugar-coating or avoidance of acknowledging their own historical responsibility and direct continuation from that very ugly and uncomfortable historical fact responsible also for the existence and continuation of their present state of things as they are - as they owe their current existence in part to that ugly and uncomfortable historical fact.

Also being uncomfortable as framing them as also being subjected to by others to be unwilling victims of the genocide of their people s helps in turn frame what the European settler-colonialists did to them as a war of near equal powers and of equal footing in which they had no other choice but to unwillingly gave up on their land to the victors as losers have to and have not been subjected to a campaign of steady and systematic forceful erasure of their physical and cultural existence and presence from the lands which they once occupied from them to be replaced by another people. 

7 hours ago, Vrubel said:

The native Americans truly deserve our compassion and understanding for their struggles and tragic loss

They deserve to be acknowledged as victims of a genocide that has befallen and brought upon them (much like the European Jews universally are) and to be justifiably and meaningfully redeemed on that basis by giving them back what was taken away from them as much as now as it is possible in the contemporary context in order to honor their dignity and humanity and to foster true reconciliation, tolerance, redemption and acceptance between all people now living on that land.  

7 hours ago, Vrubel said:

People celebrate Columbus because he stands symbol for the spirit of pioneering and discovery. (with emphasis on symbol).

Yes, but also Columbus Day and celebration of Columbus was also invented as a myth and tradition for the Italian immigrants and Catholics coming to America who faced early on discrimination and oppression as Catholics by the majority Protestant population to feel like they were from the very beginning a major part as people as a whole behind the founding project of America from the very get-go so the Protestants cant discriminate them as newcomer foreign immigrants and claim they were the only ones from the start and behind the contribution of setting the founding stones for creating a new civilization in America since they share the same ethnicity as that guy working on behalf of the Spanish Crown.

[bejapuskas]

7 hours ago, Vrubel said:

People celebrate Columbus because he stands symbol for the spirit of pioneering and discovery. (with emphasis on symbol). He was after all the man that connected two worlds, that's huge in world history. We know that Columbus was very stubbornly ignorant, bigoted, exploitative and a slaver (as was the norm at the time) but you cannot really accuse him of genocide because he never intended to exterminate a race. 90% of America's population died of European disease, which is a mindboggling tragedy even surpassing Europe's plagues. 

You can blame the Europeans for going to America and bringing the diseases but in a sense, the native Americans were the victims of history and just plain human progress and evolution. European settlers not coming to America to form colonies and ultimately nation-states at the expense of the natives is something that never could have happen knowing the ambitions, struggles and worldviews of the people at the time. 

I think celebrating Columbus even as a symbol is a sign of ignorance of what he did and what kind of person he was. Hitler also built a lot of nice roads and railways in the Czech Republic, but Czechs do not celebrate Hitler as a symbol of progress. That would be very odd and it would be very insensitive to the families of the victims and the survivors of the systemic killings. 

He connected two worlds in the sense that he killed people and enslaved them. Connecting to me sounds more like learning from each other, engaging in fair trade etc. That is not what happened. If you read Columbus' diary, you would see his thoughts on the native people when he arrived, the intention was clearly to enslave them.

"Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion. They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots." These are the words of the Admiral."

The disease was intentionally spread at least in some cases by the colonizers by the way. Perhaps if the colonizers did not try to use them for their selfish motives but rather learnt about their spirituality, agriculture etc. which was super developed, it would have lead to more progress?

7 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Also the Apache, Blackhawk helicopter names are mostly out of respect for the warrior spirit of the respective natives. Intrigue and fascination along with bigoted racism was also part of the European relations with the natives. 

The native Americans truly deserve our compassion and understanding for their struggles and tragic loss but framing them as just victims and to over-fucus on the political correctness of semantics does not do justice to their role in history as fearsome tribes that fought the Europeans as well as against each other. 

What do you mean by this?

[Vrubel]

@Fleetinglife  I have read your lengthy reply and I appreciate your well-informed take on this subject you are clearly passionate about. 

It's true that most European colonizers did not care the slightest about the well-being of the natives. The few people that did were exceptional religious figures like Bartolomé de las Casas. As somebody who traveled throughout South America, I am well aware of the barbarity and the horror the Europeans unleashed upon America. The destruction of cultural treasures, the inquisition, slavery, silver mines and all under a rigid cast system based on race.

But why did they do this? The answer: Life in 1500's and 1600's Europe was absolute misery and a struggle for survival. You had plagues, religious wars, civil wars, the little ice age, hunger etc. Why would they feel compassionate towards some foreign heathen when you struggle yourself so much and all you know is some intolerant religious worldview that deems those that are different as sinners.

Also, the natives were not just innocent victims, I think it's very disrespectful towards them to just only think of them like that. They were brave warriors, shamans, stonemasons, artists, and traders, and still are! They conquered, build civilizations and empires and like all the rest they fell. War was a fact of life for both the natives as well as the Europeans. History is brutal and both the natives and Europeans navigated this brutal world they were born in, the best they could.  

That's also why I think It's silly to feel offended if a helicopter (which is a pretty badass machine) is called after a native tribe. Hitler wouldn't call his helicopters jew or gypsy because he was just disgusted by them, he had zero respect or intrigue for them. I think it's good that a bit of native terminology and culture seeped into mainstream American culture. That's just one of many ways how their culture lives on.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Vrubel

[Shin]

I learned 2 days ago that colonialism is still taught in a very biased way in French colonies.

Like they are taught that the French took care of them and respected them and other bullshit.

Blew my mind such lies, they were treated like cattle, sold for a bag of coffee.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Shin

[Fleetinglife]

3 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Also, the natives were not just innocent victims, I think it's very disrespectful towards them to just only think of them like that.

The point is to acknowledge that an equivalent to a modern genocide happened to a people on the land on which most of them lived and for something meaningfully to be done for that to be kept in mind by those whose ancestors profited from that and future settlers and for the natives to be meaningfully compensated for that for those who lost their lives and lands similarly to the European Jews and not be just satisfied with the tokenism of natives through mainstream mass cultural remembrance of naming choppers after tribes of them.

That's my take if can summarize it, simply, briefly, and sorry for not having currently the time and energy to write another lengthy response on some of the other points I respectfully disagree with and some I agree with after you clarified some of your past points and interpretations that I now hopefully haven't misinterpreted or was in bad faith towards by my own tiredness and fault at that time of first responding to you and I apologize for that if I came overly crass or judgemental towards you in phrasing my response and answer.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Fleetinglife

[bejapuskas]

@Vrubel  How would you feel if I slit your throat in your sleep and took out your organs in order to transplant them to my family member who is suffering from some disease and their life is "absolute misery and struggle for survival" as you described it? I would then call you a hero and name a knife I use to cut veggies after you, because you were a strong person or something. You would have also realized that I chose to use your body to save my family member because of your specific race.

[Fleetinglife]

Also, an interesting or rather disturbing fact from history. Yes, Hitler and the Nazi ideologues used as their inspiration and justification for their implementation of 'Lebensraum' in Eastern Europe the historical result of what the Euro-settlers achieved in the West of the U.S. and have on dozens of occasions stated the direct comparison between what their plan is for Eastern Europe to the process of what happened in the U.S. and North America. By the way, the concept of 'Blood and soil' was inspired by the USA. The 'soil' part comes from 19th-century German colonialists who examined the US example and concluded that they should copy the US because 'like them, we have a stronger appreciation for the soil':

(The First Image of Excerpt 1) The USA inspired the Nazis in their drive to conquer Eastern Europe, deport/murder its Indigenous people, and replace them with settlers:

(The Second Image of Excerpt 2 and 3) numerous quotes from Adolf Hitler on US settler colonialism. He saw the genocidal US as an inspiration and tried to emulate it in Eastern Europe.

(The Third Image Excerpt 4 and 5) Friedrich Ratzel, after visiting the USA, conceived of the theory of 'Lebensraum', a core part of Nazi ideology. He engaged in a direct dialogue with genocide-venerating American intellectuals in doing so. Hitler picked up Lebensraum directly from his work.

Source: Online excerpts from the book Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law

  

Edited October 15, 2021 by Fleetinglife

[Vrubel]

@bejapuskas @Fleetinglife  People did whatever was necessary to survive. I can make statements about how people were more animal than people in the past, yet I am just not that judgemental and I also don't have that black and white vision of victims and oppressors.

Let's take Ghengis Khan, he was an absolute maniac that spread death, destruction and disease from Korea to Crimea. Yet I don't have the urge to hate and demonize him. Why would I spend my energy on that? He was simply a force of history. Fun fact: He literally catapulted plague diseased corpses into a Genoese settlement in Crimea. The Genoese fled back home and introduced the plague to Europe. 1/3 of Europe died, absolute tragedy but then what?

Due to diminished population, labor became more valuable resulting in more rights, the abolishment of serfdom, technological inventions, the renaissance, the reformation etc. AKA progress. Just give thanks to Ghengis Khan for the fact that you're not a peasant who is forced to work the land 24/7.

Nothing is black and white in history. Napoleon killed a lot of men, most notably a whole generation of French youth but he also spread the ideals of the French revolution which made absolute monarchies in Europe unsustainable. He introduced the Napoleonic code, abolished the Inquisition and emancipated Europes jews. That's progress! Even the sheer horror of the ww2 and the Holocaust pacified Europe and the world to a historically unprecedented degree. Look how tolerant places like Germany are now.

Colonialism isn't evil, it's progress! Chompsy wouldn't be alive to criticize America if it wasn't for America. Him being born in America and not Europe saved him from the Holocaust. And so was-and-is America a safe haven for millions of people. Just Think of all the inventors, scientists, businessmen, entertainers and even spiritual teachers America produced that make your life so much easier. The harsh fact is that this never would have happened if America was never colonized the way it was. 

Edited October 15, 2021 by Vrubel

[Derek White]

1 hour ago, Vrubel said:

Colonialism isn't evil, it's progress!

1 hour ago, Vrubel said:

Just give thanks to Ghengis Khan for the fact that you're not a peasant who is forced to work the land 24/7.

How do you know things wouldn't have turned even better without Genghis Khan or colonization?

What kind of logic is this? By the same logic I should come to your home and steal everything from you and make you earn it all over again, maybe that will make you a stronger person and we can call it progress. 

The point of the thread is to remember the genocide of natives, so that we don't repeat the same mistakes. Don't derail it by your "everything that ever happens is progress" rhetoric please. 

 

[Fleetinglife]

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

for the fact that you're not a peasant who is forced to work the land 24/7.

Peasants didn't work on the land 24/7 that's a modern myth and misconception about the Middle Ages. During the Industrial Revolution workers had more work hours during the day than Medival peasants ever had and even in some seemingly 'developed' places in modern times up till this day to be clear.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

Progress isn't linear there is massive suffering and pain in its various stages and regresses. It's more dialectical than anything, as this conversation, for it to be truly embodied and motioned forward.

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

I am just not that judgemental and I also don't have that black and white vision of victims and oppressors.

You are judgemental in the other sense by putting your notion of 'progress' on the pedestal above other things and using it to justify and obfuscate other unresolved issues today by your notion of them being a part of this infallible idea of 'progress'. You have a black and white vision of the notion of war, destruction, death, and progress as one always being a prerequisite for the other in order to avoid addressing the first mentioned's impacts on the state of things and problems of today as a result of that same 'progress'.

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Yet I don't have the urge to hate and demonize him. Why would I spend my energy on that?

Nobody here has the urge to demonize and hate just to point things that are conveniently glossed over and repressed as being a part of the mainstream discourse for the reasons not having to feel a responsibility to address them and be personally bothered to do something about them to make amends with them and to reconcile them with people who don't feel or think like you or it felt to them as being a part of 'necessary progress'.

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

1/3 of Europe died, absolute tragedy but then what?

Due to diminished population, labor became more valuable resulting in more rights, the abolishment of serfdom, technological inventions, the renaissance, the reformation etc. AKA progress.

Interesting theory that has some merits of course as one of the factors and thanks for sharing it (I think I've heard it somewhere else but I have forgotten where exactly, unfortunately), but you excluded others by uplifting this one as 'the prime blind and accidental determining causation and force indirectly caused by other seemingly unrelated causations and forces'. It is a lack of human agency view of history, that excludes also a multitude of peasant rebellions that facilitated that in that transition and actual human agency that pushed that transition to be actually possible, and not as a result of that 'determining factor' that made it all possible. 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Nothing is black and white in history.

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

That's progress!

This is actually also a black and white view of history - death, war, destruction, pain, suffering - a necessary prerequisite for - progress!

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Even the sheer horror of the ww2 and the Holocaust pacified Europe and the world to a historically unprecedented degree.

It radicalized some other places to this day since you are viewing its effects exclusively from a Eurocentric perspective, because of the mass atrocities committed and what people it victimized. Some of those people like the Israeli Jews are using the legacy of WWII and the Holocaust as a justification for their settler colonialism, maintenance of an apartheid state, and ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities and crushing of human rights against Palestinians since they use it as an ultimate victimhood narrative and don't want a repeat of that trauma so they project it onto anyone considered a threat.  Also, Russia uses it as justification for its distrust of the European Union and Europe for their perceived downplaying of their own victims and is still belligerent and distrustful towards European Union because of it to this day. Look at how Israel and Russia are now today. The world is now not currently pacified at all rather I would say it is heading towards another brink because of the aforementioned contradictions.

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Colonialism isn't evil, it's progress!

Depends my dude, depends on how you view it and depends on who is doing the colonizing and who is being colonized, and their aforementioned response and development. Muslim immigrants are now coming to European countries because of the legacy of colonialism in them and you can see the resulting problems and backlash in them. Look at the legacy of colonialism in the countries such as Lebanon and Iraq today.

Saying this sounds like a judgment of colonialism on a positive basis. I thought we came here not to judge anything. Black and White. Also saying this obfuscates and avoids the initial argument of dealing with the legacy of colonialism in a meaningful way in the U.S. and acknowledging and compensating the victims of it, of how hard is for some to admit that there are some in that scenario and some who profited from that. 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Chompsy wouldn't be alive to criticize America if it wasn't for America. Him being born in America and not Europe saved him from the Holocaust.

You are phrasing this and sounding like an American conservative at this point with this logic. Him being born black, Japanese, or Indian American would he have been saved in America by America or maybe end up in reservation, prison, or an internment camp for some time. 

 

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

And so was-and-is America a safe haven for millions of people.

.

20 hours ago, Vrubel said:

Just Think of all the inventors, scientists, businessmen, entertainers and even spiritual teachers America produced that make your life so much easier.

Here we come at the crux of the issue you are glorifying America too much and putting it on a pedestal. Engaging in American glorification, triumphalism, and exceptionalism in some sense which erases native suffering from the land and their struggles now. Like all the best of the best come from and worked in America which revolutionized the world economy and moved it forward, forgetting the international background of a lot of the percentages of those types people across the world and where they were raised, worked, and lived. 

I can ask you to think of China the same way, look how much Chinese cheap labor and products made there made your life so much easier because of their affordability, those American products couldn't be so widespread and affordable without Chinese cheap and overworked labor and also look at that the number of Chinese tech devices and products available on the world market. Should China then also get a free pass because of that what they are doing to their own ethnic minorities, colonialism, and belligerency towards other nations in the region? So China should also get a free pass when it colonizes a country in the region because of the harsh fact if they didn't they wouldn't be able to do this that they are currently doing?

If not this reveals a Eurocentric bias towards colonization.

The history of colonization is not over as some like to think. it yet has to be reconciled and people labeling it as a necessary forward crushing part of 'progress' are just avoiding that issue facing ahead of us. 

Edited October 16, 2021 by Fleetinglife

[bejapuskas]

On 16. 10. 2021 at 2:22 AM, Vrubel said:

@bejapuskas @Fleetinglife  People did whatever was necessary to survive. I can make statements about how people were more animal than people in the past, yet I am just not that judgemental and I also don't have that black and white vision of victims and oppressors.

Let's take Ghengis Khan, he was an absolute maniac that spread death, destruction and disease from Korea to Crimea. Yet I don't have the urge to hate and demonize him. Why would I spend my energy on that? He was simply a force of history. Fun fact: He literally catapulted plague diseased corpses into a Genoese settlement in Crimea. The Genoese fled back home and introduced the plague to Europe. 1/3 of Europe died, absolute tragedy but then what?

Due to diminished population, labor became more valuable resulting in more rights, the abolishment of serfdom, technological inventions, the renaissance, the reformation etc. AKA progress. Just give thanks to Ghengis Khan for the fact that you're not a peasant who is forced to work the land 24/7.

Nothing is black and white in history. Napoleon killed a lot of men, most notably a whole generation of French youth but he also spread the ideals of the French revolution which made absolute monarchies in Europe unsustainable. He introduced the Napoleonic code, abolished the Inquisition and emancipated Europes jews. That's progress! Even the sheer horror of the ww2 and the Holocaust pacified Europe and the world to a historically unprecedented degree. Look how tolerant places like Germany are now.

Colonialism isn't evil, it's progress! Chompsy wouldn't be alive to criticize America if it wasn't for America. Him being born in America and not Europe saved him from the Holocaust. And so was-and-is America a safe haven for millions of people. Just Think of all the inventors, scientists, businessmen, entertainers and even spiritual teachers America produced that make your life so much easier. The harsh fact is that this never would have happened if America was never colonized the way it was. 

Why would you demonize him? Because people at this time idealize these sorts of people too much. Some even look up to them. History is taught in a biased way. Meanwhile, slavery, colonialism, child labor, sex slavery and all these things connected to men like Columbus etc. still exist and more people are affected by them than ever before, even though the percentage is less. And ignorant people who "don't demonize" say "People in this era would never do that kind of horrible thing" while they unconsciously benefit from it every day. That's the sneakiness of survival.

[Vrubel]

@bejapuskas @Fleetinglife

When I read your replies instead of openness I feel a wall of contempt and outrage even though the core of your message is one of compassion and understanding. Dividing the world between victims and oppressors closes you off to the complexity and the larger picture of history.

If your purpose is to fight for social justice I think it’s a very noble cause though I do think you would benefit from a less judgmental view on history. What I value the most in history is the beauty of it, history speaks to me and plays in my head. I care more for the beauty than obsessing over historical "facts" altho those also have their importance, but history really becomes fascinating when the line between history, imagination and myth blurs, as it so often does.

I am involved in a project that makes interactive infographics about history for children. The main goal of the project is to get children intrigued and fascinated by history. We also cover topics like explorers and conquerors. Even though they are controversial in today's environment we made the decision not to unload this heavy bag onto the children. Children will not be intrigued into learning history if I, for example, would come with an agenda implying that historical figures are evil and that America or any other state is evil, at their age, this would be plain disappointing and have the opposite effect of intrigue. In a sense, I have a child-like passion for history and I want to transmit that. Beauty, Idealization and seeing the virtues are a big part of this.

Later when they grow up they can learn more in-depth about the cruelty and injustices in history. 

When I was a little kid, I had a very good and wise teacher. I asked him once in history class: what happened to Indonesia (our former colony) after ww2. He said: "We felt so happy to be free so we granted them the same freedom ". Of course, later I learned that Holland fought a very bloody war after ww2 in an attempt to subjugate Indonesia. 

But his answer was absolutely brilliant because A: it implied that my country is good and B: it implied that Indonesia's independence is also good.

He of course knew the truth very well yet he did not want to diminish my childly passion for history and my country, which was perfectly healthy and innocent.  

Somewhere along the line, my passion for history diminished but after doing spiritual practices and a lot of psychedelics I learned to be more authentic and I rediscovered many of the passions I had in childhood. I learned that I was never meant to "outgrow" them. 

I can't help but feel that stage-green ideology and society suppresses these passions within children and adults like it did with me. If you deep down don't think that Napoleon or Alexander the Great are kinda badass, you're suppressing your inner child and inner passions. Especially as a boy or man, you have an inner warrior, conquerer and Emporer inside of you, let him out! 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Vrubel

[Fleetinglife]

1 hour ago, Vrubel said:

I am involved in a project that makes interactive infographics about history for children. The main goal of the project is to get children intrigued and fascinated by history. We also cover topics like explorers and conquerors. Even though they are controversial in today's environment we made the decision not to unload this heavy bag onto the children. Children will not be intrigued into learning history if I, for example, would come with an agenda implying that historical figures are evil and that America or any other state is evil, at their age, this would be plain disappointing and have the opposite effect of intrigue. In a sense, I have a child-like passion for history and I want to transmit that. Beauty, Idealization and seeing the virtues are a big part of this.

Hey, keep doing what you are doing, you are authentically chasing your childhood passions which are commendable since a lot of people don't do that at all in life once they grow up and you are also teaching kids in a creative way in an innovative project that requires a lot of hard work and purpose and enriching thus their childhood. Even adults glorify and idealize some famous or not so famous historical figures as sources of inspiration for themselves, an enticing story of the deeds which can be told to your community as a source of inspiration and awe and drive what can they do and accomplish in life, including me. For example, I liked to watch and still do follow the channel Epic History (There is the whole series there from Napoleon and the Napoleonic wars to the wars between Ancient Greek city-states and the Persian Empire) on YouTube to learn about history, and be awestruck and inspired by it and by some figures and their incredible and unbelievable past deeds and achievements in it for the same exact reasons. Of course, there is beauty and joy in that and a sense of shared communal values and origins in that and some myth telling here and there. Though that has nothing to do with what we are talking about here since we are approaching this topic on this forum as people who seek the truth of things and self-development. How would you teach this to kids? Well, yes that is a question worth asking. Maybe teaching them the same way they are cartoonishly evil as some other historical figures the ones we discussed here at least. Nothing is fundamentally evil but you can find a way to talk about the repressed shadow of that which it presents as self as good in a creative way - while keeping the part aimed at kids.

But in sum keep doing what you are doing it is a commendable purpose, you are authentically acting according to your passions and life purpose that is a big step for many people along the way, you can later solve all these approaches for this presentation issue of all the history and its seemingly darker aspects,

Edited October 18, 2021 by Fleetinglife