I read in the news this afternoon that many Americans are calling for a boycott of Swedish vodka manufacturer Absolut because it launched an ad campaign in Mexico featuring a pre-1846 map of parts of North America.
I wasn't alive back then, but some of you might remember a time when most of the United States was Mexican territory. American settlers tried to annex the state of Texas into the United States in 1846. The two countries went to war when Mexico refused to recognize the annexation and Mexico City was occupied by American troops, ending the war in 1848. Mexico was forced to cede most of its territory including what is now California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Now, the United States is constructing a large fence along the border between the two countries to prevent illegal immigrants (otherwise known as undocumented Mexicans) from crossing.
This thing about constructing fences is vaguely familiar. Wasn't it in Israel that international controversy was aroused by the construction of a protective barrier around parts of the West Bank to prevent Palestinian terrorists from launching suicide attacks on the Jewish population?
We feel justified in giving sympathy to the poor Palestinians who get so oppressed by their Jewish neighbours but we forget that Israel is the only country in all of history that has won every time it has gone to war and gave up the land it has conquered.
In 1948 Israel was invaded by five neighbouring states but managed to expand its borders.
In 1967, the six day war further expanded Israel's borders to include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank--Palestinian territories.
In 1973 Egypt and Syria tried to invade Israel but were repelled. Israeli troops took the Sinai peninsula from Egypt but later returned it peacefully in a series of peace negotiations with that country. Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the state of Israel.
Since the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel is in the process of giving the right of self-government to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Despite huge territorial gains in war, Israel has made many significant concessions to Palestinian Nationalism. Shouldn't this principle be followed everywhere? Should the United States be forced to return the territory conquered from Mexico? We could even take this further and assume that all descendants of Europeans should be forced to return to Europe and allow the Americas to be ruled by 'indigenous' Americans.
One thing we must remember is that every power that has ever existed, every nationality or national group that exercises control over territory has won that territory from whatever national group possessed it first. The only rights that any nation has over territory is the right of conquest. You keep what you conquer. N'est-ce pas?
This may not be extremely efficient on a political level, but I think God must find these quibbles a bit preposterous. The whole argument is about who OWNS the land, and the fact is, what we mean by owning land is planting a flag on it, controlling its borders and its inhabitants, and deciding what goes on there. We don't own anything.
ReplyDeleteThe first settlers came and put the English flag on land that was already inhabited by thousands of peope, thus "capturing it" for Britain. But if the army hadn't come and taken control of it, that would have been a completely meaningless gesture.
So making land claims ("this is my land, I was here first") always seems a bit silly to me. No one owns anything...I mean, technically the animals were here before the North American tribes, and we stole their land. So this whole post-colonial attitude can get skewed sometimes.
What I think IS important is what was done to people. When people come here from across the ocean and start massacring other people, that's a problem. And yes, those historical problems have repercussions throughout history. And they do need to be addressed. But however clear the sides and the stakes were then, they aren't that clear now. I mean, you tell all the Europeens that they owe big time to the Natives...but the sides aren't divided that clearly anymore, and the responsibility of other people's choices are not necessarily encumbant on me because I have an indirect lineage to them somewhere in my family tree.
What's important is what we do now. Who do we marginalize? Who do I oppress today? That's what needs to stop. We need to stop talking about who owns what and learn to live with each other.
i completely agree, vice. land ownership is completely arbitrary. actually, ownership of anything is completely arbitrary. so what we're taught is that you can only own what you can maintain possession of by force. there's no moral about it, you can't apply right or wrong to it.
ReplyDeletei think these disputes are ridiculous because in the end, who cares? in the end our status is not measured by what we possess. and, to me, the only practical purpose of nationalism is that it can be a vehicle to protect people, by enclosing people by national groups within protective borders. but throughout history, we've seen the failures of these ideas. nationalism protects no one and what's left is it's only those who have the power to protect themselves who can protect themselves. not much has changed since the old caveman...