Siggon Kristov wrote:CanadianEh wrote:I honestly don't know enough to make an informed decision/I approve but disapprove of an independent state. All I know about the Middle East is what CNN and Bill Maher tell me.
I'm Indo-Caribbean. I live in Jamaica. Over 90% of Jamaicans have West African ancestry, but my ancestors are from India. My Indian families came here less than 200 years ago.
Imagine if the British, who colonised both India and Jamaica, had set up a small settlement for Indo-Caribbeans, and invited me to live there. Imagine that, after I lived there, I tried to expand this settlement by demolishing the homes of people who already live in the surrounding area. Imagine my justification for this being that "My ancestors lived here, so I have a right to live here" while pretending as if the people there don't have a right to live there.
Now you may say that:
- I don't face oppression in Jamaica
- My issue isn't a religious one
You would be correct if you pointed those things out, so let me give you a more religious-sensitive case, while also giving you the opportunity to learn more about Rastafarians. They have similarities with the Jews.
Christianity dominated colonial and post-colonial Jamaica. Pan-Africanism was on the rise. Detached from their roots, some Africans wanted to form a religion that made them feel more in touch with African religious practices. It went hand in hand with the "Back to Africa" movement that aimed for a revival of African culture in a dominantly-African country. This wasn't a movement to literally go back to Africa (which is what makes this different from the Zionist movement), but some Jamaicans indeed took it literally, and were inspired by the Zionist movement.
Afro-Jamaicans identified Ethiopia as an African power, since it was never colonised (except for a very small period of time when Italy occupied it). Rastafarians have, since then, identified Ethiopia as their home, and have revered Haile Selassie as a great icon of African strength. According to their religion, all Africans originated and spread from Ethiopia, so they saw Ethiopia as the heart of Africa, instead of West Africa where most Jamaican slaves were from. What adds to the credibility of their belief, in their minds, is that studies suggest that East Africa is where the human species originated from.
Rastafarians were brutally oppressed in Jamaica, during the first 10 years of independence. They got a little more respect after Michael Manley won elections since a lot of them were involved in Leftist movements, but even middle class Leftists treated them terribly. To be a Rastafarian was a bad thing. I remember growing up (this is in the 90s, not the 60s) and hearing that I need to keep my hair low cut or else people would think that I'm "a Rasta" and they told my female cousin that she needs to comb her hair "to avoid looking like a Rasta" - being a Rasta was the worst thing in society you could be. Attitudes gradually shifted when tourists paid attention to our "Rasta culture" - it is only then, and after Bob Marley's music contributed to revolutionary poetry, that Jamaicans started respecting the 3% of the population that identified itself as Rastafarian.
So, just imagine if the Rastafarians moved to Ethiopia en masse and claimed that they originated in Ethiopia so they have a right to establish a Rastafarian state there. The justification for their Rastafarian state would be this claim of ethnic origin, as well as the Rastafarian history outlined in Rastafarian religion. It's just like a Jewish religious text being used as a historical document to justify the creation of a modern Jewish state, over a thousand years after the Jews left Israel. Some said they were forced to leave, by the Romans. Likewise, Africans were forced to leave by the European colonial powers. Whether Rastafarians wanted to set up this state in Ethiopia or somewhere West Africa, would it be legitimate if they treated the existing settlers the way that Israel treats Palestinians? Let's note, by the way, that Palestine wasn't the only place that the Zionists considered for setting up a state.
Is it okay for me - along with other Caribbean people of similar ancestry - to just move back to a piece of land where our ancestors are from, at the expense of the people who are currently living there? I would say no.
However we should also look at the broader history of the region. After the Romans took over and expelled many of the Jews, there was no history of an independent state existing in the Palestinian region. After Rome fell it became part of the Byzantine Empire then it became part of the Islamic Caliphate that burst from the Arabian Peninsula. After the split of the Caliphate it was dominated by whatever regional power held sway whether it was the Egyptian Mameluke's or the later Ottoman Empire. Outside of the Jewish established states, there has never been a Palestinian established state.
The trouble really started in Palestine/Israel once the Ottoman Empire fell in 1918 and the British and French took over the region. As Jewish settlers arrived they bought the land from the land owners and tried to make their own existence there. The problem was most of the poor Arab farmers were shafted by their former landlords when the land was sold thus fueling unjust resentment. To the Jews, what was a legitimate and legal property transactional process was some tinged subversive move by the Jews to remove Muslims from land.
On top of all this, the British proved hopelessly inept to ruling Mandatory Palestine between 1918 and 1947. They refused to deal efficiently with any ethnic and social tensions whether it was coming from Islamic rioters or Jewish paramilitaries and they simply let the problem spiral out of control. A vicious cycle of violence thus established itself to where Islamic mobs attacked Jewish settlers who in turn supported the Jewish paramilitaries who provided a measure of safety and "justice" that the British could not and frankly did not issue.
Thus when Britain left in 1947, it left behind a region ready to kill itself simply because it did not even attempt to build any effective institutions or resolve any underlying social tensions. And then in 1947 we see something quite remarkable, a total war. And as we all should know, a total war where groups of people are fighting for their mere survival brings out the worst in all of us. It brought the worst of Europe out in the two world wars and it brought the worst out of the American people during the civil war in the mid 1860's.
In 1947, the nascent Jewish state, which was defended by nothing more than a group of paramilitaries now faced the ostensibly more modern forces of the 5 combined Arab armies who were committed to driving the Jewish people settled here, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust, into the sea and wiping them all out. In all honesty, atrocities and mistakes were made by all sides. Arabs/Palestinians evacuated their own villages and towns because of their belief in a quick victory and the first targets after the end of the British Mandate were newly established Jewish settlements. And on the Israeli side, it's probably true that they forced many Palestinians and Arabs from their homes as the fighting raged. It was total war, neither side has clean hands here.
However my post focuses on the present. Ask yourself, would Palestine be better off as a truly independent country right now? Every time I ask myself that question I always come up with the same answer: no.
Afrocentric wrote:pride, religion and politics
Those are the essentials of cultural identity. Pride, religion, politics are all part of a common identity that unite people together. Asking people to simply set aside these crucial considerations and parts of who we are as a people is naive.
