1.After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth; 2.And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them (Acts 18:1-2, emphasis mine).
The greatest honor that the United States can bestow upon an individual is to grant a national holiday named in recognition of their birth-date. Thus far, only two Americans have been granted this lofty distinction: George Washington, for his role in the Revolutionary War and the fact that he was the country’s first president; and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for his fight to bring equality to the black citizens of this country. In addition to the two Americans whose lives are celebrated, this country has also set aside a day to pay tribute to one of the most notorious criminals this side of the Cross—Christopher Columbus.
It could be argued that the most significant event in world history in the last millennium and a half is the Columbus invasion. In fact, it is difficult to imagine the world that we live in today without the exploits of Christopher Columbus. The year 1492 is perhaps the most famous year on the Western calendar, and it is no coincidence that it is the demarcation of the medieval period and the Renaissance. As Europe was emerging from the throes of the Dark Ages, King Ferdinand of Spain commissioned Columbus to launch an attack on the indigenous people of the Americas. They had their sights on a future that was to be illuminated by the blood of the indigenous people:
For as much of you, Christopher Columbus, are going by our command, with some of our vessels and men, to discover and subdue some Islands and Continent in the ocean, and it is hoped that by God's assistance, some of the said Islands and Continent in the ocean will be discovered and conquered by your means and conduct, therefore it is but just and reasonable, that since you expose yourself to such danger to serve us, you should be rewarded for it. And we being willing to [honor] and [favor] You for the reasons aforesaid: Our will is, That you, Christopher Columbus, after discovering and conquering the said Islands and Continent in the said ocean, or any of them, shall be our Admiral of the said Islands and Continent you shall so discover and conquer…which you and your Lieutenants shall conquer, and freely decide all causes, civil and criminal, appertaining to the said employment of Admiral, Vice-Roy, and [Governor], as you shall think fit in justice, and as the Admirals of our kingdoms use to do; and that you have power to punish offenders (excerpt from Privileges and Prerogatives Granted by Their Catholic Majesties to Christopher Columbus : 1492 (emphasis mine)).
Western expansion under Columbus was the classic case of an outsider coming in with sufficient force to disrupt the mode of thought and the mode of action of the current landholders and eventually wiping them out. It was an all encompassing wave after wave of colonists, who over the course of about 300 years came into North and South America and the Caribbean to transplant Western culture into a world where there was no room for multiculturalism and bilingualism. In fact, the African slaves who were brought to the shores of the Americas were not permitted to speak their language, practice their customs or serve their God. This implied code of conduct, which brought the Americas and the Caribbean under the whip of colonist slave masters, is the reason why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.(1)
Haiti resisted the French colonialist since the slaves were first brought over from Africa, and on January 1, 1804, an African born slave named Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared independence from the French after 50,000 French soldiers lost their lives in the uprising. In 1804, Haiti became the first black republic in the world and was the first country in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery completely. However, in the 1830s, the French demanded reparations from Haiti in the amount of 150 million francs in gold. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was spending 80 percent of its national budget on repayments to France and in 1947, Haiti finally paid off its debt, plus interest.(2)
It was not long after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made a demand for restitution in 2003 that he was forced into an involuntary resignation by American forces. Although this is not the story that the mainstream media was playing out in the United States at the time, Aristide contacted Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, to explain that he was removed from office by an American led coup d’état.(3)
The timing of Aristide’s demand could not have been better for America and its Western allies. They were embroiled in the War on Terror; consequently, his appeal fell under the radar screen and largely upon deaf ears. The irony is not lost on me that the first black republic was overthrown by the Bush Administration during its struggle to bring democracy to the Middle East.
Was the Bush coup a response to Aristide’s demand for restitution or is Haiti under the chronic chastisement of the West for its military victory over France more than 200 years ago? This conundrum becomes more significant when we consider that the Western world has endeavored to remove all vestiges of other cultures from its society since Columbus’ fatal strike. However, it is discovering, to the horror of many, that it is an extremely difficult task to wipe away the cultural embrace of other societies; for it is the soul of their civilizations. Consequently, the West has been forced by the yearning of the human spirit to tolerate multiculturalism and bilingualism. However, there have been loud voices in the Western world that are calling for America to abandon its tepid embrace of a multicultural society. Most notably among the dissenters are Tony Blankley in his book The West’s Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations; and Pat Buchanan in his books State of Emergency, The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, and The Death of the West, How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil our Country and Civilization.
Blankley’s, Buchanan’s and a myriad of others’ books urge the West to reverse its experiment with a social concept that has eroded the European values that propelled America to the technological apex of human civilization. However, the late Samuel P. Huntington, former chairman of Harvard University’s Academy of International and Area Studies, brings a more urgent, some would say racist, cry for Western nationalism. He is perhaps the most influential author demanding that Western Civilization return to the values and distinct culture of the British settlers who ‘founded’ America. He predicted the current war between Islam and the West in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, and was the most quoted author during the period immediately following September 11th.
Clash of Civilizations first appeared as an article in the influential periodical on international relations—Foreign Affairs; the house organ of the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the editors, Huntington’s article generated more discussion (controversy) than any article in the previous 50 years. The article evolved into the book of the same name, which details a road map for Western democracies to establish an international order, which he claims is the best safeguard for world peace. Huntington’s sequel to Clash of Civilizations titled Who Are We, The Challenge to America’s National Identity, confronts the viewpoint that America can remain the leader of the world by embracing varied cultures. According to Who Are We, Europeans came to the United States with a distinct culture which included social, religious and legal values that were once adopted by non-European immigrants. Huntington espouses the notion that American citizenship will be devalued if immigrants are permitted and encouraged to bring their cultural values to America and not embrace its European values.
Who Are We is a very disturbing look at white nationalism by one of America’s premier intellectuals. Huntington, never known for his willingness to back away from controversy, seems to suggest that white Americans should gear up for a “racial hygiene” that eliminates any trace of multiculturalism by apparently predicting the resurgence of racism in the West:
“…the various forces challenging the core American culture and Creed could generate a move by native [white] Americans to revive the discarded and discredited racial and ethnic concepts of American identity and to create an America that would exclude, expel, or suppress people of other racial, ethnic and cultural groups. Historical and contemporary experience suggest that this is a highly probably reaction from a once dominant ethnic group that feels threatened by the rise of other groups. It could produce a racially intolerant country with high levels of intergroup conflict (Who Are We, page 20, emphasis mine).”(4)
Huntington is emphatic in his belief that white Americans should pursue a path of sequestration against “people of other racial, ethnic and cultural groups.” If white Americans went into full-throttle, expelling, excluding or suppressing citizens of other ethnic, racial or cultural groups, it would not be without precedent. History is replete with majority groups turning against their country’s minority. However, what should be unsettling to any ethnic minority in America or Europe is that the Western world continues to demonstrate that its appetite for ethnic cleansing has not been diminished over time.
…to be continued
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_American_and_Caribbean_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29
[2] http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/13/cancel_haitis_debt
[3] http://www.nathanielturner.com/aristidekidnapped.htm
http://dissidentvoice.org/Mar04/Pitt0302.htm
[4] I challenged Professor Huntington in 2005 when he held a book signing in Washington, D.C. I quoted this section from page 20, and asked him pointedly if he believed that white Americans were willing to revert back to the age of Jim Crow in order to sequester people of color. He denied it, but had no response when I asked him why he inserted something in his book that he did not believe would happen.
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