Tag: imperialism

What happens if your neighbours move their fence so it takes up space on your side of the garden, or if someone continually uses your parking space and refuses to move? What happens when fishermen stray out of waters they are entitled to fish in, to fish in waters allocated to other nations? Don’t these things cause disputes?

What happens then, when lands are divided up in ways that affect the inhabitants? I guess it could be hard to imagine England, The United States, or Australia being partitioned into separate nations. We can see problems related to the division of land in places like Ireland and Northern Ireland, Germany (Wast and West before unification), Russia since it’s break up and in Israel with Palestine.

The scriptures state:

However, when we consider the scripture above in relation to the map at the start of this article it seems stunning to realise that Europe has had several strands of imperialism (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Belgian and Italian) that have grown their empires to impact three quarters of the world and in the process divided many, many lands in a perhaps irreversible way. Speaking of the arrogance and complacency of the rich, a Psalmist writes:

Let’s take one example Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was previously named Rhodesia after Cecil Rhodes who Wikipedia describes as “An ardent believer in British imperialism”. Cecil Rhodes, apparently the son of a vicar and no doubt supporting interpretations of scripture that underpin European colonialist exploits, not only gained control of large swathes of Africa because of British military superiority, but he also became a key player in the mining industry in Africa, forming a company you may well have heard of, De Beers, which he started with funding from the now infamous Rothschild (“New World Order”) family!

What gave Europeans the supposed “right” to take over other lands?

Yah elsewhere in scripture describes the actions of such people thus:

Imagine the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, atomic bombs dropped on civilian populations. Some say this was done to bring WWII to and end more quickly, some say that this was retaliation for attack on Pearl Harbour and America flexing its military might. Nevertheless, between 129,000 and 226,000 peopled died in those bombings, and the debate still goes on even today about its legitimacy. Regardless of your view on this European’s have always been a law unto themselves, the allow themselves to commit crimes and excuse themselves for it while accusing others for doing the same things, or even for having the capacity to do the same things!

Moreover, if the use of force in Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be accepted, and I for one do not think it can, then what about the use of force in the Iraq War which many view as illegal? Doesn’t this repeated action show a pattern of disregard for human life and the ability for European nations to exercise their rights outside of the framework of the rights of other nations, thus being a law unto themselves?

You can take this onto a micro-level and look at the interactions in society between some sections of society and law enforcement. Not only is it self evident that law enforcement enforces law according to different standards for different sections of society, there are also situations where law enforcement, politicians and other people who play a key role in the institutions of authority show that they too see themselves as being above the law.

Renewing focus on the central argument. Now, these scriptures do refer to different ancient kingdoms throughout the history of the earth, they are not even in coded language supposed to relate directly to Europe or its imperialist, colonial empire building activities. Yet, the key point to take from these scriptures is that Yah opposes those who devour lands that do not belong to them. In a spiritual sense then, these scriptures relate to Europeans because their own actions are the same as those of the people and nations presented in the scriptures. Europe does not have a special dispensation or “free pass” to exclude itself from the wrath of Yah for these crimes.

What we do see in scripture is the notion of a union of kingdoms which has absolute power over all the earth’s inhabitants, but this is more than physical and economic, it also represents spiritual power:

This union of kingdoms is referred to as secret or “Mystery Babylon”:

These prophecies in the book of Revelation don’t come about because this is Yah’s ideal situation for the earth. Rather, they come about because of rebellion against Yah. These prophecies are foretelling unhappy events some past, and some to happen in the future.

The one nation Yah gave the right to drive out nations before them was Israel, and that was many thousands of years before these European empires came into existence. Since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD70 in line with Yeshua’s prophecy in Matthew chapter 24, Israel largely became a scattered people until the 1940’s when they some began to return, although some were already in the land, with the help of various European nations such as Britain, and the offspring of Europe such as America.

However, my understanding is that although Israel’s right to be a nation is perpetual, the means by which it achieves this is not to be through the war mongering exploits practised 5000+ years ago, but through being a beacon of justice and hope as I have written elsewhere.

The contrary perspective that Messiah provides is not that the strongest, most heavily armed, most full of intrigue, or those with the most extensive alliances will inherit or take possession of the earth, but:

What we see with the slow demise of European empire is not the world returning to the state in which it was before borders were redrawn, peoples were enslaved and exported and resources were forcibly confiscated; no, none of those things have happened to any meaningful degree. What we do see is a morphing of the European power, having effectively raped lands and taken what they wanted, they now effectively control the destinies of those lands, people and resources remotely through military power, through economic, religious, social and cultural mechanisms. This in itself causes further problems for societies and peoples trapped between a world of their own heritage, and the heritage of oppressors who first and foremost only maintain relationship to safeguard their own interests, with the welfare of people coming second at best.

I don’t think it has ever been within European nations plan to completely reverse the harm they have caused, but to prolong their use of power for as long as possible, like leeches draining blood. Even if Europeans wanted to undo the harm they have done, would they know how?

Let’s look at this from another perspective. What do western nations do with nuclear waste, waste from electronics, the waste from over-consumption? I expect you have heard about The Pacific Garbage Patch? The illustration below is from 2019, and it demonstrates the size of a growing patch of garbage in The Pacific Ocean which is several times the size of Germany, and approximately the size of Mongolia or Libya. Consider, America has 4% of the world’s population, but 12% of the world’s waste, China with 15% of the world’s population produces 18% (only 6% more of the world’s waste than America) despite having a population almost four times the size.

The thing is, no one knows how to clear this patch or even stop it growing and the amount of waste we use is growing fast.

The key thing about Europeans is, though skillful in their exploits, though outwardly successful, they do not know how to clear up the mess they make, and for them, the confusion that mess causes becomes a catalyst for the continued exercise of their unjust power, they know now shame for it, and will rarely be bound by the rules which they set upon others.