Gus > Likewise, on the broader picture, wherever you look in London, Rome, Venice, Paris, Sevilla, and other cities of Europe you see buildings, monuments etc which were built with the blood of blacks from the former colonial empires. The European economy for nearly 500 years was run on the blood of blacks and native Americans -- and all Europeans benefited.
Ah! We agree at last. So why do you single out the SAn whites, like me, for criticism? You're a sadist.
> But it's still possible for us to deal with and put an end to present-day colonialism --whether it's "domestic colonialism" in Europe and the US, or in its more brutal and anachronistic forms in Palestine and apartheid South Africa.
Like in SA and Palestine, the idea of apartheid, while an interesting and even a compelling theory is, in practice, a failure. Had it succeeded it would still be there but it didn't. SA recognised that and tried to rectify the situation. But it won't happen in Palestine, simply because the religious fanaticism of the Zionists, both Christian and Jewish, is too great. The Jewish ones want the dream of a Greater Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile, fulfilled and the Christian ones want to world to end so that Jesus can reappear and take them all to heaven. (Actually they remind me of the Rev Jim Jones, but on a much grander scale)
urchin.earth.li
> As in the case of Jewish outfits filing class action suits against Swiss banks or German corporations or French museums. I think it'd be ridiculous for African countries to follow suit and demand billions of dollars to make up for colonialism.
If one can get big money by an act of simple blackmail, then why not? And especially if the lawyer collects half. In fact, I'm waiting for the NY shlenter lawyers to initiate the class action against the US whites for slavery. Or maybe they're too busy defending the neocons at the moment?
> I think it'd be ridiculous for African countries to follow suit and demand billions of dollars to make up for colonialism. Money is not the silver bullet to kill poverty... As a famous Brussels priest put it, "The poor are poor not because they don't have money --they don't have money because they are poor!"(*) For that matter, zillions of dollars and euros were donated to Africa through numerous NGOs, to no avail as far as economic development is concerned.
We agree again. But it's like saying the stupid are stupid because they are stupid. Unfortunately, the problem can't be solved by merely defining the argument.
> And when we look at oil-producing countries that have won tens of billions of dollars at the "geological lottery" we see that it didn't translate into advanced technologies, homemade consumer products and a local industrial base.
Same on the stockmarket and similar places where people have made windfall profits. But that doesn't stop them, each and every one, from attributing their "success" to their own personal brilliance. But so what? In truth, is there anything better to do with one's money than piss it against the wall?! At least one can feel good about that because money is the root of all evil and one is getting rid of it. |
