this night, as most other nights, i remember, again & again, what has happened so recently to iraq
i am convinced my last thoughts will be for her, over a million people have been murdered by an empire that again & again elaborates the methods of the einsatzgruppen.
africa is again proving to be the last post of the u s, empire with africom, & it will carry out more carnage, carnage that we can observe so clearly in the congo but has already extended in somalia, yemen, nigeria
i fear greatly that empire will do to africa what it has done to iraq. that is the complete destruction of the nation, the complete obliteration of its culture & the mass murder of its people - it is already doing so
we cannot pretend to be blind, mass murder has been official u s strategy for a very long time. only complicity in those act permits us to not see that, from korea to somali
i will say the obvious, those who are doing the dying are black brown or 'yellow' - the conquest of the empire has always been deeply deeply racist. the philippines has not recovered from its subjugation under the americans - laos is a country full of lamentations for what has disappeared from the face of the earth, completely
the beauty & wonder of latin america is that it has created itself from the pits, mounds & trenches the empire made of those countries, in these last two decades it is a source of wonder to watch them build slowly but 'earthed', another possibility of living, possibilities that have increasing importance for those of us in europe & africa
it is still frail, & the empire has been so busy destroying & raping the middle east & africa, that latin america has been afforded & taken sufficient breath to redraw the parameters of possibility
i am, by nature deeply pessimistic; coming from a country that has murdered the memory of memory, a nation that goes about the business of extinguishing aboriginals & aboriginality- it has been able to do so because of the complicity of its people, who want all the benefits of white skin privilege (immigrants to australia also take on this white skin privilege) - life has got uglier not more joyous, in fact very far from that because the memory of memory is like dna, you cannot escape it, & finally the bill for that privilege has to be paid but before that moment comes, there will be carnage that becomes a part of culture, a malignancy certainly, but an integral element of that culture
what happened & what happens to iraq is at the centre of the malignancy of western culture, & ultimately, it death. it cannot be otherwise
i have no faith, but i believe in history
& history is implacable in its inevitability
christopher barnett novembre 2013
i am convinced my last thoughts will be for her, over a million people have been murdered by an empire that again & again elaborates the methods of the einsatzgruppen.
africa is again proving to be the last post of the u s, empire with africom, & it will carry out more carnage, carnage that we can observe so clearly in the congo but has already extended in somalia, yemen, nigeria
i fear greatly that empire will do to africa what it has done to iraq. that is the complete destruction of the nation, the complete obliteration of its culture & the mass murder of its people - it is already doing so
we cannot pretend to be blind, mass murder has been official u s strategy for a very long time. only complicity in those act permits us to not see that, from korea to somali
i will say the obvious, those who are doing the dying are black brown or 'yellow' - the conquest of the empire has always been deeply deeply racist. the philippines has not recovered from its subjugation under the americans - laos is a country full of lamentations for what has disappeared from the face of the earth, completely
the beauty & wonder of latin america is that it has created itself from the pits, mounds & trenches the empire made of those countries, in these last two decades it is a source of wonder to watch them build slowly but 'earthed', another possibility of living, possibilities that have increasing importance for those of us in europe & africa
it is still frail, & the empire has been so busy destroying & raping the middle east & africa, that latin america has been afforded & taken sufficient breath to redraw the parameters of possibility
i am, by nature deeply pessimistic; coming from a country that has murdered the memory of memory, a nation that goes about the business of extinguishing aboriginals & aboriginality- it has been able to do so because of the complicity of its people, who want all the benefits of white skin privilege (immigrants to australia also take on this white skin privilege) - life has got uglier not more joyous, in fact very far from that because the memory of memory is like dna, you cannot escape it, & finally the bill for that privilege has to be paid but before that moment comes, there will be carnage that becomes a part of culture, a malignancy certainly, but an integral element of that culture
what happened & what happens to iraq is at the centre of the malignancy of western culture, & ultimately, it death. it cannot be otherwise
i have no faith, but i believe in history
& history is implacable in its inevitability
christopher barnett novembre 2013