The process and history of colonisation as it developed in Europe from the 15th Century onwards presents us with patterns of terrorism that persist down to the present. It is easy, these days, to point the finger at the “Axis of Evil” as a justification for the “War on Terrorism”.

Looking back over history, it is possible to identify the strategies that generations of colonizers have used to justify their actions and the cultural and spiritual legitimation of murder and genocide in the name of God. These strategies have historically included:

•    The rapacious greed for resources – land and raw material (gold, spices, oil) to increase corporate profits
•    The eradication and/or assimilation of indigenous cultures
•    The fragmentation of indigenous social structures (extended families, clans etc)
•    The imposition of Western nuclear family structures.
•    The imposition of a cash economy
•    The imposition of “civilising” compulsory Education
•    The eradication of native languages and cultural forms
•    The creation of class dependencies to establish a pool of labour
•    The creation of scarcity to maintain  competition for jobs (at lower wages)
•    The imposition of an ethic of punishment and guilt
•    The replacement of indigenous constitutional forms and structures with Western models

These and other strategies were and are still used to perpetuate the continued expansion of capitalism down tho the present time.

One of the most telling of the historical examples to which we might point is that of the Iroquois Federation which had existed in social and cultural harmony for centuries in the North East United States before the coming of the white man. What is so telling about this example is that the pre-colonial culture of the Iroquois was extremely well documented, and the culture itself was held up as an exemplar by the founding fathers of the United States, who used it as an example upon which to model the Constitution of the United States – that is, before they destroyed it. Key to this destruction was the imposition of a system of Education
 

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