Europe and USA, under their colonial and imperialist policies, have massacred millions of people around the world and taken over their land on a massive scale in the last and this century. Their ‘civilisation’, development and industrial revolutions have been powered by the stolen land, labour and resources of countless countries in almost every continent. First they conquer people, their countries and continents. Entire continents of North America, Australia, New Zealand are the main examples. The imperialists then eliminate local people who had lived there for centuries and claim their land and countries as their own possessions. Time passes and it is almost forgotten that they massacred local people and stole their land and countries. The survivors are treated almost as prisoners.
They then needed labour to produce the goods that Europe and North Africa needed. They found an ‘easy’ solution— steal people and turn them into slaves. Over 20 million Africans were captured with the power of guns, enslaved and taken from their lands to plantations in the Americas. Time passes and the crime of stealing and killing people is almost forgotten. Except by the survivors.
That was then. What about now? The enslaved people and countries resisted and demanded — and achieved — independence from their colonial ‘masters’. But wait, not so fast. Independence was not independence which people understood it to be. The imperialists appeared once again in a new guise as enlighten tribes, no longer with guns but with a new weapon of comprador allies. The
compradors now became the new homeguards, with all the trappings of state power, complete with armed forces and foreign advisors from IMF and the World Bank. This was enlightened colonialism, capitalism under the guise of people power.
And yet the days of colonial conquest, massacre and land-stealing under imperialism have not ended. Imperialism, with all its might, has failed to get total control over people and their lands. They found another trick this time: create an agent state and set it up in the region they want to control for strategic reasons and for resources. They thus created a state out of thin air and called it ‘Israel’. The rest is history.
Imperialism hides behind the new state and sets it up to gobble up people and land of Palestine. The year 2023 is programmed to be their year of triumph when Palestine will be wiped out and all that will remain will be ‘Israel’ — the great ally of imperialism globally, the proxy to be used when open warfare is not possible for USA.
But in the process of eliminating Palestine, imperialism has let loose global forces it cannot control. People in their millions have been politicised by the ‘Israeli’ attacks on hospitals and schools, on women and children. In spite of massive attempts by the Western media to blame the victims as the culprits, and to hide the on-going imperialist genocide, people are not buying it. The policy of ‘sinning in silence’ that the Kenya colonial Attorney General imposed on Kenya (Cobain, p.110), is no longer possible. Technology makes it possible for people around the world to see, hear and understand that imperialism is carrying out a genocide in Palestine under the armed forces of ‘Israel’, armed and weaponised by USA imperialism which then pretends not to be the perpetrator of the genocide.
Attacks on Palestine do not go on in silence, as the previous genocides did. The condemnation of imperialism and ‘Israel’ by people can be seen in the streets of almost every country in the world. People in their millions are raising their voices, not only against the enemies of Palestine and but against the comprador ‘leaders’ around the world who support the ‘Israeli’ genocide just as they are happy to oppress their own people. Their voice is clear: ’When we lose our fear, they lose their power!’, as Wanjiru Wanjira (2020) said when defending people’s rights in Kenya.
Imperialism may have hoped that there will be silence around their latest ‘conquest’ of Palestinian lands and genocide of its people. The refugees they thus create by the genocide, they hope, will lie low in countries around the world or die from starvation. But this will not happened. The real impact of the imperialist genocide of 2023 will return time after time to haunt the USA imperialism. Its impact will last for generations. It will find the genocide of Palestinians one genocide too many. It has sounded the death-knell of USA as an imperialist power. And the sinking ship of imperialism will take the non-state of Israel with it. People everywhere have nothing to lose but their fear. And gain power.
Long Live the Struggle of the People of Palestine! We are all Palestinians!
Shiraz Durrani is a Kenyan political exile living in London. He has worked at the University of Nairobi as well as various public libraries in Britain where he also lectured at the London Metropolitan University. Shiraz has written many articles and addressed conferences on aspects of Kenyan history and on politics of information in the context of colonialism and imperialism. His books include Kenya’s War of Independence: Mau Mau and its Legacy of Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism, 1948-1990 (2018, Vita Books). He has also edited Makhan Singh – A Revolutionary Kenyan Trade Unionist (2017, Vita Books) and Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr,1927 – 1965 (2018, Vita Books). He is a co-editor of The Kenya Socialist. and edited Essays on Pan-Africanism (2022, Vita Books, Nairobi). His latest book (2023) is Two Paths Ahead: The Ideological Struggle between Capitalism and Socialism in Kenya, 1960-1990. Some of his articles are available at https://independent.academia.edu/DurraniShiraz and books at: https://www.africanbookscollective.com/search-results?form.keywords=vita+books
References
Cobain, Ian (2016): The History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the Shaping of a Modern Nation. London: Portobello Books.
Wanjiru Wanjira (2020): When we lose our fear, they lose their power! – see Wader, Neha (2020): Mothers, sisters, wives: Kenyan women lead fight against police violence. — The New Humanitarian 03-09-2020. Available at https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2020/09/03/Kenya-women-gender-police-violence
