Mr. Hussain, while accurate on slavery, neglects to discuss the importance of drugs (sugar, coffee, tea, opium, rum, tobacco, etc.) and drug monopolies in the European colonial enterprise.The British, who now chaperon the Americans, did not massacre their subjects because they wanted to make the world safe for democracy decades later. It happened, as all imperial massacres do, in the frenzy of absolute power. It happened in the sick conviction that all colonial masters have toward their subjects--that they have the god given right to decide the course of history for them while at the same time gorging themselves on the loot from the very same subjects.
Perhaps more urgent is the fact that the British Empire is the most commonly cited model for the global power currently brandished by the United States. America is the successor to the Empire in both senses: offspring in the colonial era, heir today. Since the United States in 2005 formally controls a far smaller area of the world than the United Kingdom did in 1905, it will leave no stone unturned in extending its writ to a slice of the earth almost as large, if not larger, than its former master did. The British Empire came to greatness by killing millions of defenseless people. The next Empire will not be found wanting if the Empire building dream is to be fulfilled.
For centuries, the white man from Europe has plundered & terrorized the non-European world treating with contempt the people of different skin color, cultures, philosophies, religions, languages, and way of life. The conquered nations were expected to give up their own culture, their religions, even their languages, and convert to his set of beliefs and values that he defined as “civilized”. In the process, he tolerated no opposition. Any kind of expression of opposition was brutally suppressed. Today’s terrorist groups are like a bunch of kindergarten kids when compared to Europe's colonial armies. Using those armies, the white man killed the people of color, and terrorized the survivors, with a careless abandon justifying it at various times by calling those killed as pagans, heathens, savages, cannibals etc.
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Ironically, the white man continues to be called ‘cultured’ and the rest as ‘hadjis’, ‘brutes’, and ‘ragheads’. This incongruity cannot be clearer than in the answer of an Indian to a taunting European settler. The Indian said, “White man, you have wiped us out, you stole our lands, you destroyed our homes, and you raped our women and brought deadly diseases to our people. You have done all the unthinkable crimes anyone can imagine. It does not hurt me any more. What truly hurts my people and me is that despite all these crimes you have committed against my people, we are considered savages and you the "civilized" people. That truly hurts me the most!"
Fountainhead
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