22020172- Is Europe Redeemable
Is Europe Redeemable?
“A civilization that proves incapable of
solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that
chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken
civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit
is a dying civilization”.
While
apologizing for the copy-pasted block quotation, these few sentences alone are
what answer the question to the prompt. The redemption of Europe, in my opinion,
depends on its ability to solve the problems it created and compensate in the form
of reparations for every disadvantage and misery they have caused to those they
oppressed. This list of oppressed is not just limited to those colonized, it
also includes the mass majority of their own people (the working class) who
have been exploited for centuries now. This blog will attempt to show how
Europe can do nothing to solve, fix, compensate for or justify the cruelties
they have launched upon the greater part of the global population.
Cesaire’s
analysis of how “colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize
him” helps frame the approach of the colonizers towards the areas they
dominated. Even if we ignore the economic effects of the entire process for a
while the brutality with which colonization happened broke those who were
colonized in an irreparable way. From the cutting of hands by Leopold to the millions starved in Bengal by the British the people were left truly devastated
by a form of violence never seen before. The terror and psychological impact of
these events coupled with the physical pain of events that can be described as
nothing less than torture can never be accounted for by any change in behavior.
No apologies or even, in a utopian world, economic payments could equate to the
immeasurable pain caused to those at the time. How then I ask does Europe
redeem itself.
But even if
the question is purely economical and Europe somehow manages to pay back every
dime it looted directly back to those they colonized (45 trillion dollars just from India NOT fixed for inflation
as per Al Jazeera (link provided below)) the economic impacts of European
ventures go beyond just direct thievery. The socio-political conditions of
post-colonial states have meant that there have been consistent wars and
conflicts, military takeovers, civil wars and numerous other events that have
consistently caused economic damages to the colonized. Added to this is the unaccountable disadvantage they have left to the colonized states by literally
leaving them with no wealth to invest or develop so that they may have even a
chance at a fair race in an economic system that is also set up by the
colonizers to advantage themselves. Even if Europe’s conscience suddenly wakes there
is nothing they can do to pay back what they have stolen. How then I ask does
Europe Redeem itself.
For lack of
allowed words this blog cannot even analyze the reparations Europe has to pay
to its own working class on whose labor and exploitation it has built itself or
for what it owes to the global working class for enforcing the same system on
them. In more ways than can be analyzed Europe is irredeemable. There is no
redemption for a civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it
creates
Comments