Monday, October 31, 2011

The Burden of Shame

 
Do you feel the people inhabiting the modern day city of Rome should bear the burden of shame for the Roman decimation of the native (Indigenous) peoples who once resided, presumably peacefully, on that portion of the present day Italian Peninsula?

clip_image002They were a pre-literate agrarian society known as the Etruscans, who were so thoroughly snuffed out by the Romans that not much more than this is known about them. The picture to the left is what a common Etruscan Sod and Stone Dwelling from the First Millennium BC would have looked like.

Perhaps, my initial question is premature since the Etruscans at the very least displaced, but more likely conquered and possibly enslaved, a previous civilization. This unnamed pre-Etruscan civilization built basic tombs and had developed religious rights for their dead. They crafted tools from not only elk bones, but had and developed metallurgy to the point of producing numerous bronze artifacts such as rings and axes specifically designed for war as well as others designed for hunting.

Wait, the evidence of war axes made of bronze indicates that even these ancient indigenous people had the blood of some other previous occupants of the real estate that the Pope calls “home” on their hands.

We really don’t need to creep around in the dark recesses of history where Stone Age people may have pounced upon one another for the nicer cave with all the modern conveniences (e.g. - access to hunting grounds, water, less bat shit, or what have you). What of the bloody Roman Empire? People flock from all over the world to see the Coliseum where the blood of millions of subjugated peoples was spilled for fun of the common Roman. Aren’t the People of modern Rome, as well as the modern nation of Italy as a whole, at this very moment not only enjoying the spoils of these murdered people, but they are profiting from the tourist trade. Hundreds of millions of Euros flow to Rome every year, should they not hang their heads in shame for their crimes against humanity?

No!
From Beijing to Machu Picchu and from Ireland to Polynesia everyone wiped out or enslaved someone else to take their resources or real estate. This process isn’t a recent occurrence either. It was not brought on by over-population of the virus, more commonly known as humanity. It is not caused by Capitalism, Western civilization, some murky inherent dehumanization within industrial society, or the religious “Right”, as many Social(ist) Studies textbooks in use today would have you and your children believe. These tools of  "Critical theory" believe that the American people as a whole are culpable for an offence given by generations long dead against a people who are no longer living. Their ill-concieved rant fails to note that the vast majority of American citizens today are not descendants of those who profited from either slavery or the near extermination of the indigenous peoples of North America.

In truth, while the atrocities of African slavery and tribal genocide were being carried out, the majority of our European ancestors were living under near Medieval feudalism in Europe. The life of a serf is arguably equal to if not worse than that of a slave. A slave was purchased at a cost and considered valued property, while a serf was merely another mouth for the noble lord to feed once his crops had been harvested and when he needed no bodies to impale against another feudal lords pikes in his ambitious plan to take something that did not belong to him.

Once, again if anyone is to blame or to be called into account, it is not the People of the United States, Western culture, Capitalism, or Christendom, but government controlled by the few and claiming to be acting on behalf of a cause much higher than their own naked ambition.