A Revolution in The Middle East Part II

Thursday, 05 October 2006 09:00

Editor’s Note
Anybody who’s heard an Immortal Technique song is likely to have understood that this New York emcee was on the political tangent of hip-hop and that he was extremely knowledgeable in matters of history and the record industry. Also an activist, Immortal Technique seems to take pride in raising awareness on social injustices, particularly in the United States and Latin America. (He was born in Peru.) So, it should come as no surprise that he felt like opining on the recent Hezbollah conflict with Israel. This is the second part of a blog entry he made on MySpace on July 24th.

Immortal Technique A couple of weeks into the crisis, I turned on the TV and saw Hillary Clinton looking desperate as ever to claw worms of unlikely political support out of the deep earth. She made the statement in front of the UN that Israel’s values were the values of America. I thought about that for a moment, and being a student of history, I turned the pages back to how they both were the bastard children of the British Empire: conceived by White people in Europe while the land was still populated with the indigenous people. How they had conquered the land and the natural resources that they reign over now by using The Word of God. How they displaced people and uprooted homes to make room for more people that looked like them from far away.

I though about how they both imported Blacks to work for them and then to fight for them (Ethiopian Jews.) Didn't they both support Apartheid firmly? And even when it became unpopular to do so overtly, they did with their corporations. Haven't they both always portrayed themselves as tortured fighters, survivors in a land where people did not want them? As if they somehow belonged there even though there was civilization before they came into existence as a people or a religion. And sadly enough, there has never been anything but arrogance instead of atonement for the Palestinians and Native Americans who once lived on that land. Instead we just hear lies about their lack of existence and stories pass through generations about their savagery.

Please do not mistake my questions and contemplation for some radical hatred. I know many people suffering on both sides of this conflict. However, it is sad when a person cannot question Israel's domestic and foreign policy without being called Anti Semitic. After all, I think that a white American can have issues with illegal immigration, with gang violence and job placement without hating Latinos, Africans and Asian people. And if that is possible, then why is it impossible for me to question a government that has a history of violence — whether it’s on the receiving end or if it is the bringer of such? I have no superficial or condescending sympathy for the genocide and discrimination that Jewish people have been forced to endure. But rather, I have true empathy and understanding for their struggle to survive in a world of persecution, genetically recessive traits, and where people are more than ever turning away from conventional forms of Judeo-Christian religion

You see, my people throughout Latin America and Africa had a holocaust and our people date back to before Biblical times as well. We see the evidence of the African holocaust in the history of America and every time we pass a black man in the street who doesn’t know where his last name came from. And since Black and White people weren’t married when they were slaves (but rather women were raped), when a Black person has a generational history of being light skinned we see the failed attempt at ethnic cleansing. But I humbly beg that you all remember that we were not beaten by the military might of the White race, we were beaten and enslaved through deceit, disease and trickery. I always say it with conviction because it is conveniently never spoken of. The greatest lie told of our people is that we came quietly, that we accepted slavery, that we did not fight it until the bitter end with all of our heart and soul.

And what about the Mayan people of Central America (El Salvador, Southern Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize) who lived through what they described as four Apocalypses. They had the recorded history of their people on Codex (similar to Egyptian papyrus), for well over a thousand years. Until the Spaniards, deeming it blasphemy, burned it in the 1500s. They burned their detailed history that supposedly included stories of great earthquakes, floods, meteor showers, creatures that are now extinct and man like visitors from the stars. Not that I necessarily subscribe to any of these things mentioned, but it would have been an interesting read at least, and at best a window into a world before our culture was destroyed and replaced with Catholicism. The history of a people is important and without it the people find themselves confused and searching for an identity with such longing that they will beg for acceptance.

They are willing to suffer humiliating indignities just to gain the right to pledge allegiance and die for a country that has, with only a handful of debatable exceptions, never fought for a cause that directly benefited them. For every instance you can bring up where America has taken on the White man’s burden to help free Black and Latino people, I can have an ace of real reasons for their involvement that trump that familiar soap opera good guy character they play on TV.

That said, I can point to the fact that during the first 100 years of the colonization of South America, an estimated 120 million people died of war, disease, famine and a variety of unnatural causes directly related to the invasion. European scholars and apologists make this number much lower, somewhere around 60 or 80 million. But even so, take the average 100 million people over the course of 100 years. 1 million people a year for a hundred years. We know what a holocaust is, and anyone who denies that claim is either not a student of history or a convenient liar.

For the next 500 years, our nations would live under European and American rule. We were nations of Natives and African people ruled by White Latinos who spoke our language but have always looked down upon us. We were experiencing what Black people in the South experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, what people in South and Central America went through in the 1970s and 1980s with the CIA sponsored coups and the disappearing of thousands of revolutionary students.

For more on Immortal Technique...
- http://www.myspace.com/immortaltechnique
- http://www.viperrecords.com/imtech/bio.shtml
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Technique
- Read Part One of "A Revolution in The Middle East"

{moscomment}

Comments

Add New