Ron Jacobs
One of the most appalling conversations I have had this century took place in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square on September 11, 2001. The stench of the burning towers of the World Trade Center and their human and other content hung in the air, the bluish smoke a repulsively smelling fog. I had just found my friend whose workplace was mere blocks from the collapsing structure and we were sitting in the park drinking a bottle of wine. A small group of younger people in their twenties were talking among themselves when one turned to me and asked what I thought should be done about the perpetrators. I responded, saying that the individuals responsible should be found, arrested and tried. One of the young men in the group disagreed. Like most of his friends, he wanted war. On somebody. This comment was not particularly surprising; I mean we were in the US, where war is always suggested as a solution. I asked him what he thought should come next after his war. That was when a Black man among the group spoke up. His words were simple: Colonize them all. That’s how we can civilize them. I lost it. I told him it was the history of colonialism that had created the situation that ultimately provoked the perpetrators of the attacks to commit this heinous act and more colonialism would not change that. He repeated his statement. One of his friends asked him if he was descended from those who the US had enslaved. He nodded yes. I asked him if he understood that the system of US chattel slavery was a direct result of colonialism. He began to answer when the building known as Number 7 fell. Our conversation was diverted by the ruckus that the building’s collapse made; my friend and I went to get some food and more wine.
Colonialism is the scourge that refuses to die. Its legacy includes tens of millions dead, even more enslaved and environments destroyed. Its purpose was (and is) to enrich the colonizing powers, neuter movements of popular revolutions and national liberation, and ensure the domination of the planet’s people by a relative few whose arrogance is surpassed by their hunger for power. It assumes many forms, militaristic and economic, liberal and reactionary. Sometimes it sells itself as a way to provide freedom to the downtrodden and unwanted in the colonizing nation; other times it presents itself as a means of economic development. In an essay titled “Blind Imperial Arrogance” that was published on July 20, 2003, Edward Said wrote “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” Of course and no matter what, colonialism exists to enrich the colonial power at the expense of the colonized. Until the colonized liberate themselves from the colonizer, they will never know liberation. This is true overseas and inside the world’s most powerful colonizer nation, the United States.
Recently, it has been reported that the US is supporting a plan that would install former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the head of a so-called Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA). This plan would once again put agents of the Global North back in the colonial overseer’s role in the Gazan sector of Palestine. Under the pretense that the United Nations would be running this colonial authority, the western colonial powers would once again be in direct control of part of Palestine. Although Israel’s role as the imperial watchdog would not necessarily be diminished, its current genocidal slaughter has limited its effectiveness in that role for the immediate future. This did not occur because Washington, Britain and the rest of the western governments have a problem with Tel Aviv’s performance in preventing the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, but because too many people in the western nations arming the slaughter are strongly opposed to the slaughter. By creating this so-called transitional authority—an authority that virtually no Palestinian is publicly on board with—the US, UK and EU hope to dampen the popular protest against the Israeli genocide in their respective countries. Let’s be clear, this is not a move toward a sovereign and independent Palestine; it’s another attempt to maintain control of the region by the western powers. From the original British mandate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the establishment of Zionist Israel by the western powers looking to maintain control of the region known as Palestine to the Oslo Accords to this Authority contrived by the west and informed by its colonialist mindset, the purpose remains essentially the same—to prevent Palestinian self-determination.
I can’t help but be reminded of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq earlier in this century, where a similarly named “Authority” was imposed on the ravaged people of Iraq. Known as the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq (CPA) and perhaps best known for its corruption, arrogance and a colonial mindset straight out of a speech by Winston Churchill or a villain in a Joseph Conrad novel, the CPA existed as a puppet government during its brief one-year existence. The fact that Tony Blair—Dubya Bush’s lapdog—is being touted as the head of this Authority seems to make those comparisons even more apt. Another similarity is that the armed resistance groups are prevented from participating. If one recalls the situation in Iraq, it was a similar situation that created the Iraqi resistance to the occupation. Furthermore, the fact that the plan to impose GITA on the Palestinians was supposedly hatched by Donald Trump’s son-in-law and real estate hustler to the wealthy Jared Kushner only lends more credibility to its colonialist intentions and its potential failure. It cannot be repeated enough: any “solution” to the Palestinian demands for sovereignty and peace will not be imposed from Tel Aviv, Washington, Brussels, London or another world capital. Every scheme, every peace plan presented by outside powers—either by individual governments or under the auspices of the United Nations—is destined to fail if most Palestinians are not supportive. History has made this abundantly clear.
Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: [email protected]
Source: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/29/colonialism-and-tony-blair-again/
