See event page for more info:
https://www.facebook.com/
Painting by Ulirk Jean-Pierre
"“My historical paintings represent the ultimate reference to the collective memory that all Haitians share about their glorious past and to the energetic force which has allowed their pride to transcend nearly two decades of social debacle.” By Ulirk Jean-Pierre
Maybe some interesting background about Haiti here are some links:
Short educational video(10 mins) about Haiti from its first revolution (1793-1803) to the neocolonial period in which they reside now. : https://www.youtube.com/
Another video about Haiti and its 'curse' from therealnews. http://therealnews.com/t2/
This is a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte in motivating his attack on Haiti:
"My decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in Saint Dominque (Haiti) is not so much based on considerations of commerce and money, as on the need to block for ever the march of the blacks in the world"
https://
https://www.facebook.com/
Painting by Ulirk Jean-Pierre
"“My historical paintings represent the ultimate reference to the collective memory that all Haitians share about their glorious past and to the energetic force which has allowed their pride to transcend nearly two decades of social debacle.” By Ulirk Jean-Pierre
Maybe some interesting background about Haiti here are some links:
Short educational video(10 mins) about Haiti from its first revolution (1793-1803) to the neocolonial period in which they reside now. : https://www.youtube.com/
Another video about Haiti and its 'curse' from therealnews. http://therealnews.com/t2/
This is a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte in motivating his attack on Haiti:
"My decision to destroy the authority of the blacks in Saint Dominque (Haiti) is not so much based on considerations of commerce and money, as on the need to block for ever the march of the blacks in the world"
https://
US Propaganda Poster from 1900. Important to note is that colonialism/ imperialism has historically always been presented as something noble.
Some general background about the Philippines for those interested, as it is important to see today's issues we face today from a longer historical perspective.
"The Treaty of Paris of 1898, 30 Stat. 1754, was an agreement made in 1898 that resulted in the Spanish Empire's surrendering control of Cuba and ceding Puerto Rico, parts of the Spanish West Indies, the island of Guam, and the Philippines to the United States. The cession of the Philippines involved a payment of $20 million from the United States to the Spanish Empire."
Next came the Sedition Law of 1901 or Act No. 292, which prohibited any Filipino from advocating Philippine independence or its separation from the United States. U.S. President McKinley [as being a racist imperialist] justified the annexation of the Philippines by saying that it was "a gift from the gods" and that since "they were unfit for self-government, ... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them".
The poster uploaded shows the tone of the propaganda during that time. Stating that "The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to aquire more territory but for humanities sake". Also you can watch this short 2 mins video that shows what rol educaiton played in colonizing other peoples, as to make them supposidly 'fit' for self-governance. : https://www.youtube.com/
After the Phillipines gained its official independance the United States supported the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos for atleats two decades, hereby further oppressing the people, also the US has kept its influence on the phillipines to this day. See for instance this video on a local demonstration where it is seen that the people are well aware of this problem:
"The crowd burned the effigy, chanting that the president is a puppet for the U.S. Many of the protesters are against the increasing U.S. military presence in the Philippines and foreign-owned mines and plantations that are wreaking havoc on the environment and local communities. " See video:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
Maybe interesting to note is that the phillipines was named after the spanish king King Philip II, as spain claimed to be the owner.
Here is a link to short a paper that explains the semi-feudal system in which many philipino food producers/ farmers are still subjected to today, from an historical perspective. Link to paper (8 pages):
http://
Another tip is to watch watch 'War by Other Means' by John Pilger to get an idea of how neo-liberal policy can impact third world countries. This documentary specifically covers the phillipines.
Link to documentary(52 mins):
http://johnpilger.com/
Also an Important note is that the Netherlands has atleast 150 companies that have invested money in the phillipines, in other words, doing bussiness there. The Netherlands is in its own words currently the third largest investor in the phillipines. Which means that we in the Netherlands are still benefiting from the colonialist infrastructure that has been set in place there over more than 400 years of kolonization of native people in the Phillipines. see link: https://
With the abolition of slavery in 1863 the 'owners' of the enslaved - either owners or shareholders of estates and owners of private enslaved in Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles - received financial compensation. Most owners lived in Paramaribo or the West Indies, some lived in the Netherlands. This map shows the addresses of the owners who at that time (1853-1863) lived in Amsterdam. Each location has a link to information in the National Archives. The house numbering is the most recent (1875). The map is based on research in the National Archives and the City Archive of Amsterdam, by history students from the Vrije Universiteit. (In France and the UK this was also the case that the enslavers got compensation rather then the victims).
Not only did the enslavers receive financial compensation for their loss in 'property' instead of the enslaved but in Suriname the enslaved were forced to continue their work on the labor camp-plantations for another 10 years until 1873 under state supervision. For more information about this 10 year period here is a useful link made by NiNsee:
http://
Interesting news is that 14 Caribbean countries are now making a claim against European countries to make reparations for slavery, read more here: http://
An interesting lecture by Esther Stanford-Xosei that explains why reparations are necessary and how we should perceive of this:
https://www.youtube.com/
Link to clickable source of the city map:http://www.vu.nl/nl/
For moreinfo see link: http://
We made audio recordings which can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/
Diversity of perspectives in science? Some articles that can make you think about that.
"If the world were mapped According To how many scientific research papers produced each country, it would take on a rather bizarre, uneven appearance."
https://
Some interesting articles in regards to the Netherlands:
"In 2007 Dr. Cassandra Ellerbe-Dueck and Gloria did research into the position of black migrant and refugee women in university " It was frightening that there was, so little black and migrant women working at the academy. Concerning women that was already under the measure, but in terms of black and immigrant women it was much worse. " the survey found that of the 221 female professors, who were working at Dutch universities at that time, five had a non-Dutch background. When doing research, according to Wekker intersectionality is important, explaining one's position in society based on a combination of social differences. "
Link to source:
http://www.sg.uu.nl/
Universities are 'white bastion'
in Dutch universities there are only eight immigrant professors, less than one percent of the total.
(this was year 2000, link to source:
Http://retro.nrc.nl/W2/
"Children from migrant backgrounds with the same test results as their dutch classmates, systematically get lower school advices"
http://www.novatv.nl/page/
'IQ tests penalizes immigrant children'
http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/
Some words on this lack of diversity in academia by Patricia Schor:
"I believe that Dutch universities are white and male because the image and imagination of Academic proficiency is associated with the authoritative figure of the white Western man. Academia in the Netherlands carries the heavy heritage of colonialism and patriarchy. The university is then not sufficiently acting as a site of problematisation and transformation of hegemonic social trends, but as a (re)producer of them. The white male norm will only change when it is acknowledged as a problem."
https://
Top 25 universities over 400 years old
https://
Women in science:
http://arcgs.uva.nl/
&
http://www.lnvh.nl/site/
POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF (PUBLIC) SCHOLARSHIP IN THE NETHERLANDS
https://
So what might be the possible impact and implications for this? How much has it influenced our worldview?
As you can see the US and Europe combined spend about 70% of total money spend on the military worldwide. Below here we will list some useful sources in relation to the US military & its impact on the environment.
As nationalpriorities.org writes: "In fiscal year 2015, military spending is projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, a total of $598.5 billion. Military spending includes: all regular activities of the Department of Defense; war spending; nuclear weapons spending; international military assistance; and other Pentagon-related spending." See:
https://
The US has possibly over 700 military bases in foreign countries (I have seen estimates range between 500 and 1100 military bases... so I picked the in between number...nobody has a clue actually):https://
& http://www.alternet.org/
The US government and its allies are notorious for their involvement in international terrorism in the 3d world. Next week we list some notorious cases, for now, a list of foreign governments that were overthrown by the US military (not a complete list) can be found here: http://williamblum.org/
Ofcourse the military has a huge impact on the environment as CostofWar wrights: "The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have had a serious impact on the natural environments of these countries. Military vehicles consume petroleum-based fuels at an extremely high rate, with the vehicles used in the war zones having produced many hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and sulfur dioxide in addition to CO2. Air pollution from military vehicles and weaponry has adversely affected public health among civilians in the war zones and US service members."
See: http://watson.brown.edu/
An interesting book about how the military pollutes the environment is 'The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism' by Barry Sanders.
See: http://www.goodreads.com/
An interesting interview which is talking about the military and environmental impact is 'Emissions Reduction Impossible without Demilitarizing Foreign Policy' by therealnews where it is stated that:
"The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the three working group assessment reports that have just been released over the last ten months, none of those three documents refer to military emissions. And the calculations and the analysis that the intergovernmental panel on climate change is using, it exempts these emissions. So it's not a full analysis of the emissions and the projections of the IPCC going forward, the kind of reductions that we need for greenhouse gases. They are not including the military emissions. So the forward projections for the IPCC are not adequate, because they're not including a big bulk of the emissions that are coming right now from the military. It's not just the U.S. military. It's--all countries' militaries have these exemptions.(...)And the reason why those emissions are not included is because of the lobbying of the United States in the mid-1990s around the Kyoto Protocol."
In other words, military lobbying is influencing scientific reports.
See: http://therealnews.com/t2/
Other examples of how the military has influenced science are given below.
'Days of Revolt: Militarizing Education'
http://therealnews.com/t2/
An article about how Anthropology was militarized:
'Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State.'
By David H. Price.
http://
The two maps show US military bases in the so called ‘middle east’ & Africa. In this slide we will give some infamous examples of organized neo-colonial violence/terrorism since world war two conducted by the US.
A noteworthy institution to mention in this context is the School of the Americas. As SOA-Watch.orgdescribes it: “Since 1946, the SOA has trained over 64,000 Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, commando and psychological warfare, military intelligence and interrogation tactics. These graduates have consistently used their skills to wage a war against their own people. Among those targeted by SOA graduates are educators, union organizers, religious workers, student leaders, and others who work for the rights of the poor. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been tortured, raped, assassinated, “disappeared,” massacred, and forced into refugee by those trained at the School of Assassins.” Source: http://www.soaw.org/
By clicking on this link you can find notorious graduates of the School of the Americas (as you can see this institution has plagued many countries in Latin America....not for nothing is the continent sometimes referred to as the US its 'backyard'):
http://www.soaw.org/
A most reason coup was plotted in Honduras (2009) see:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
A short clip (13 mins) about the School of the Americas can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/
In the documentary ‘the war on democracy’ John Pilger, an award winning journalist, describes the coups in Latin America and focusses on Venezuela coup (2003). Here he also briefly discusses the role of the School of the Americas: You can see documentary here (highly recommended)
https://www.youtube.com/
Ofcourse training death squads and torturing innocent people is not unique in foreign policy of the US specific to Latin America. To give an example: the Guardian & the BBC made a documentary about the role of Col. James Steele in supporting torture, death squads and brutal sectarian conflict during the height of the Iraq war. See interview with the documentary maker here: http://therealnews.com/t2/
Some infamous examples of democracies/government leaders that were overthrown which were than replaced by horrific puppet dictatorships with short educational clips to illustrate the impact:
Iran(1953) where Mossadegh was replaced by the Sjah see:
https://www.youtube.com/
Congo/Zaire (1960) Lumumba replaced by Mobutu:
https://www.youtube.com/
Chile (1973) Allende replaced by Pinochet:
https://www.youtube.com/
Guatemala (1954): Árbenz replaced by Carlos Castillo Armas:
Link to article about crimes committed:
http://www.cja.org/
Indonesia (1965–1966): Sukarno replaced by Suharto
Link to the story of East Timor (10 mins);
https://www.youtube.com/
Half million to a million communists were killed
https://en.wikipedia.org/
+ Massive killings in West Papua.
To close off/conclude: ''According to academics from the Universities of Portsmouth, Warwick and Essex, foreign intervention in a civil war is 100times more likely when the afflicted country has high oil reserves than if it has none.''
See: http://
Link to study: http://petros.sekeris.org/
as tomdispatch.com writes: “U.S. Africa Command recognizes 54 countries on the continent, but refuses to say in which ones (or even in how many) it now conducts operations. An investigation by TomDispatch has found recent U.S. military involvement with no fewer than 49 African nations. (...)Despite what AFRICOM officials say, a careful reading of internal briefings, contracts, and other official documents, as well as open source information, including the command’s own press releases and news items, reveals that military operations in Africa are already vast and will be expanding for the foreseeable future. "
See: http://
"In the years that followed, the U.S. increased its efforts. In 2014, for example, the U.S. carried out 674 military missions across the continent — an average of nearly two per day and an increase of about 300 percent since U.S. Africa Command was launched in 2008."
Read more here: https://theintercept.com/
Ofcourse a lot of infamous examples will not be mentioned here as there are far to many crimes committed to enlist here. This post is just to give an indicator. The wealth we share in the west unfortunately comes at a price paid by the 'unworthy victims' from the Global South. Some lists that can help you google more see below:
list of foreign governments that were overthrown by the US military (not a complete list) can be found here:http://williamblum.org/
Just a random list from the internet of ’35 countries where the US has supported fascist druglords and terrorists':
http://www.alternet.org/
&
https://en.wikipedia.org/
Some food for thought on the issue of climate change and the use of fossil fuels.
A recent study done by the IMF revealed that an estimated $5.3tn subsidy went to the fossil fuel industry in 2015, this is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments. This is the equivalent to $10m a minute every day of the year. It represents a stagering 6.5% of total global GDP!
As the article of the Guardian describes: “The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution as well as to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change." Read more here:
http://
Currently, 75% of the fossil fuels consumed are consumed by the richest 2 billion people of the planet. This means a lot of the fossil fuel pollution is emitted mainly for the richer countries. Furthermore, we must take into account/ look at the total sum of the historical pollution of the preceding 200 years of industrialization that many western countries have gone through.
Link to video that explains current distribution of pollution of rich vs poor (not even taking into account the historical dept /percentage of pollution):https://www.youtube.com/
Also it is well known that the global south is more prone to the impacts that climate change will cause (like draughts and heavier natural disasters). See for instance: http://
To quote a paragraph from the book ‘The green zone: the environmental costs of militarism':
“In a sobering study recently published in the proceedings of the [U.S.] national academy of science, a research team has attempted to calculate the environmental costs of economic globalization since 1961, as expressed in deforestation, climate change, overfishing, ozone depletion, mangrove conversion, and agricultural expansion. After making adjustments for relative cost burdens, they found that the richest countries by their activities had generated 42 percent of environmental degradation across the world, while shouldering only 3 percent of the resulting costs”. (quote from page 16, author is barry sanders).
This is relevant because this form of subsidy, of not having to pay for the damage caused by pollution is thus mostly paid by poorer countries, while the consumption itself is mainly in the richer countries. In other words, the historically colonized and exploited countries are again providing ‘subsidy’ to the rich.
We have to realize that the western promise of ‘development’ is an empty promise, in fact a lie. So called ‘developing’ countries, or rather historically exploited countries, can never live the ‘good life’ that people are living in western countries. It is simply not sustainable, there is simply not enough earth to provide a colonialist western way of life for everyone. The richest 2 billion already consume to much let alone we let another 5 to 7 billion people consume the same amount of products as the richest 2 billion….we will what?? Need 7 to 8 planets?? In other words, not only does western way of live reign havoc to other parts of the world, it also gives false promises to the exploited that they can do this as well by reaching the colonizers state of ‘development’.
If one is to fully comprehend the impact of our colonialist system on nature than one must google some the following phenomenon: Exploited fishing stocks, destruction of coral reeves, loss of biodiversity, polluted rivers, deforestation, desertification, air pollution, fertile soil depletion, global warming, depletion of fresh water reserves, destruction of natural cycles/ ecosystems, depletion of nonrenewable resources. Which always impact poorer/ exploited communities more directly / fist, especially the ones who are directly dependent on the ecosystem of in which they live.
Within this context it is important to be aware of the fact that currently: ''Pollution, not disease, is the biggest killer in the developing world, taking the lives of more than 8.4 million people each year, a new analysis shows. That’s almost three times the deaths caused by malaria and fourteen times those caused by HIV/AIDs.''
http://www.truth-out.org/
Now with this context in mind, it might be good to realize that Larry Summers, former chief of the world bank, the institution that is supposed to help ‘developing’ countries, said ''the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest-wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.'' Because you know, these countries are, after 400 years of colonialism, a perfect dumpsite for toxic waste of the West? Read the full text of the leaked memo here: http://tech.mit.edu/V121/
Last but not least we must also realize that this colonialist exploitation of earth’s resources impacts different groups unevenly, as this article illustrates women will bear most of the brunt:
http://
https://www.facebook.com/
http://
http://www.joop.nl/nieuws/
http://www.bbc.com/news/
