European bandits and the rest of us
Society is organized on the basis of some western philosophers’ assumptions that humans must be regarded as “rational beings equally worthy of dignity and respect” (Immanuel Kant). That sweeping assumption
Society is organized on the basis of some western philosophers’ assumptions that humans must be regarded as “rational beings equally worthy of dignity and respect” (Immanuel Kant). That sweeping assumption has come under serious questioning. The reason for this is not far-fetched. Humans and the animals in the jungle are governed by the same law of the jungle, which is all about the survival of the fittest. In other words, if you are strong, you survive and if you are weak, you die. We have no evidence man has been any more rational in the application of the law of the jungle. In fact the opposite seems to be the case. The animals, the real custodian of the law of the jungle, have been more coherent in the application of their law than the celebrated rational man.
It however gets more interesting when it is discovered that the custodian of the law of the jungle apply the law of the jungle more rationally than the celebrated rational human beings.
For instance, while the predatory animals in the forest only kills what he can eat, the preoccupation of humans, when not engaged in genocide as we have seen all through history and currently witnessing in Gaza and Iran, they are preoccupied with unbridled acquisitiveness and reckless consumption that destroy the environment and imperil the future of human race.
By the nature of their hostile environment, Europeans and their Western allies are natural bandits, driven more by struggle to survive than morality. For instance, the ongoing unending war between Israel and Palestine was a creation of European bandits especially Britain which, between 1916 and 1918, sponsored Arab revolt that aided her success in defeating the Ottoman Empire and facilitated the takeover and control of Palestine, Jordan and Syria. But after using the Arabs, they did not only renege on their promise to allow for the formation of independent Arab state, British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour went on to reassure Walter Rothschild in 2017 of British government support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has been occupying the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, known collectively as the Palestinian territories, an act declared as illegal under the international law by the International Court of Justice which also directed Israel to pay full reparations to the Palestinian people for the damage the occupation has caused. But Israel with the support of the US and Britain ignored the ruling.
And last year, when war once again broke out between Palestinians and Israel, Donald Trump deployed American resources to support Israel’s genocide against stateless, defenceless and occupied people, leading to the death of over 15,000 children, women and the elderly, in breach of not only international law, but also of Moses law ‘of an eye for an eye’ to discourage disproportionality.
On January 3, Trump behaving like a bandit sent special forces to capture Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela president and Cilia Flores, his wife, who were immediately sent to New York to face criminal charges even though no one appointed him policeman of the world. Trump followed up by taking over oil production and oil sales in Venezuela.
In February, Trump amidst an ongoing diplomatic negotiation, cowardly unleashed his “Operation Fury” on distracted Iran, assassinating Ali Khamenei, the Iranian Supreme leader, his wife and children and over 40 military and political Iranian leaders under the guise of stopping Iranian nuclear programme. America and Israel have continued their joint operation, bombing schools, police stations. Hospitals industrial complexes long after Trump had triumphantly declared Iranian air force, navy and military formations completely decapitated.
Long before Trump’s banditry, we remember George Bush and Tony Blair, both acting like international bandits, under the pretext of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), embarked on full scale invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. This was despite the claim of a UN inspection team led by Hans Blix that there was no evidence of the existence of WMDs. That the invasion was opposed by Canada, France and Germany and New Zealand, and that Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General described the invasion as “illegal under international law and a breach of the UN Charter,” did not stop Bush and Blair from bombing the presidential palace, followed by land invasion leading to the capture and summary execution of Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003.
Libya was before American and Britain’s illegal bombing, one of the most egalitarian societies in the world with laws affirming equality of the sexes, wage parity and provided a wide range of educational and employment opportunities for women, free education to the university level, free health care, full employment and housing for all.
Muammar Gadhafi’s problem with European bandits started with the nationalization of British Petroleum in 1971, the takeover of 51% of companies operating or producing in Libya and the 1969 government directive that all foreign owned banks must either close down or convert to joint-stock operations. His last unforgivable offence was his decision to fund the African Development Bank in order to free African nations from the debilitating effect of IMF loan. European bandits did not only mobilise the opposition in Libya, they embarked on illegal bombing of Libya on their behalf until Gadhafi was captured and executed by the rebels.
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European banditry actually predates the current indiscriminate bombing, destruction of infrastructure and killing of innocent victims. It started after centuries of internecine war among themselves. Banditry only became more vicious among Europeans and their allies with the development in technology especially fighter jets which allowed aerial bombardment of helpless targets.
In the 15 century, a few of the European bandits driven by hunger and search for glory came to Africa. Despite the fact that they met a better organized society, having guns provided an opportunity to ship over 40 million able-bodied young African as slaves to their plantations in South America. The law of the jungle was not only promoted by Europeans bandits engaged in shipping slaves, they were ably supported by other European bandits at home including the Pope who gave green light to the capturing of non-baptized Christians as slaves and of course the British queen who made personal investment in the lucrative business.
After integrating Africans to the world economic system, the bandits came up with capitalism and later globalization which many have argued is the worst form of slavery. Just imagine for a moment that the total annual revenue of Ivory Coast, the world major producer of cocoa made for her pain is less than 10% of the profit of just one chocolate manufacturing company in America.
The bandits also deliberately foreclosed our potential to become industrialized by coming up with their self-serving theory of comparative advantage which condemned us to remaining producers of raw materials for their industrial machines.
It was the internal struggle between the European bandits and their allies that led to the Second World War, viciously fought from the skies with the aid of new technology by rival bandits including Adolf Hitler, Winston Spencer Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt.
