'Deskundigen' 36

Op pagina 296 van zijn reisboek schrijft Geert Mak over de Amerikaanse president Theodore Roosevelt:

Orde, evenwicht tussen de verschillende machten, binnen Amerika en ook in de rest van de wereld, dat was zijn doel. De Amerikaanse individuele vrijheid hoefde daarbij niet in het gedrang komen, integendeel, het ging hem juist om de bescherming van die vrijheid.

Klopt deze beoordeling van Mak? Niet als men naar de feiten kijkt en naar de uitspraken van Teddy Roosevelt, zoals deze: 'No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war.'  Zijn binnenlands zowel als buitenlands beleid was gebaseerd op het adagium: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.'  Met militair geweld werden ongehoorzame gekleurde volkeren in het gareel gemept. Theodore Roosevelt was een overtuigde imperialist, zoals duidelijk wordt uit Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dream, waarin de rol werd geanalyseerd van de man die volgens Mak 'het grote voorbeeld [zou] worden van een reeks presidenten die na hem kwamen':

On the eve of a new century, an up-and-coming Theodore Roosevelt set out to transform the U.S. into a major world power. The Spanish-American War would forever change America's standing in global affairs, and drive the young nation into its own imperial showdown in the Philippines. From Admiral George Dewey's legendary naval victory in Manila Bay to the Rough Riders' heroic charge up San Juan Hill, from Roosevelt's rise to the presidency to charges of U.S. military misconduct in the Philippines, Honor in the Dust brilliantly captures an era brimming with American optimism and confidence as the nation expanded its influence abroad. http://www.amazon.com/Honor-Dust-Roosevelt-Philippines-ebook/dp/B006CUDERS

Onlosmakelijk verbonden met het westerse imperialisme was  het diep gewortelde racisme bij Theodore Roosevelt. De imperialist heeft immers een rechtvaardiging nodig om de gekleurde medemens te vermoorden dan wel als slaaf te misbruiken. In zijn boek Imperial Alibi's schrijft de Amerikaanse hoogleraar Stephen Shalom met betrekking hiertoe:

To Theodore Roosevelt, the 'most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages, though it is apt to be also the most terrible and inhuman,' but no matter, because it was 'idle to apply to savages the rules of international morality which obtain between stable and cultured communities....' Not that Roosevelt went 'so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.'

Toen ik Shalom in 2003 interviewde benadrukte hij de continuiteit van het Amerikaanse racisme dat volgens hem niet meteen zou verdwijnen als gekleurde politici het buitenlandse beleid mede bepalen, zoals naderhand ook bleek uit de beleidsdaden van minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Condoleezza Rice, haar voorganger Colin Powell, en niet te vergeten president Barack Obama, zoals nu weer blijkt uit zijn steun aan de zionistische terreur tegen de opgesloten Palestijnse bevolking.

http://www.vpro.nl/programma/madiwodo/afleveringen/14609020/media/15326425/

Shalom in zijn studie Imperial Alibi's:

Racism and U.S. Foreign Policy

Racism was one of the key founding principles of the United States. The Puritans exterminated Pequot Indians, hoping, in the Puritans' words to 'cut off the Remembrance of them from the earth.' To George Washington, Indians and wolves were both 'beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape.' In the Declaration of Independence, one of the indictments against King George was that he had inflicted on the colonists 'the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions' - a rather accurate characterization of the rules of warfare employed against the Native Americans. Repeatedly, in the Indian wars that raged across the continent, U.S. soldiers would proclaim as they massacred infants, 'Kill the nits, and you'll have no lice.' 'We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux,' wrote General Sherman in 1866, 'even to their extermination, men, women and children.' [...] How did this jibe with everyone being created equal? As Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell explained, Jefferson's doctrine applied 'only to our own race, and to those people whom we can assimilate rapidly.' Indians 'are not men, within the meaning of the theory' that all men are created equal.

Racism against Africans was another fundamental building block of American ideology. Deemed to be sub-human, they were subjected to a barbaric and brutal system of slavery. Lincoln was willing to accept slavery so long as the union could be preserved; and when the Civil War drove him to abolish slavery he did not change his belief in black inferiority. When the South introduced Jim Crow laws to maintain the descendants of slaves as second-class citizens, the northern elite went along. Even after World War II, President Harry Truman was referring to blacks as 'niggers.' Derogatory references to blacks were standard fare for President Nixon and the senior officials of his administration. 'I wonder what your dining room is going to smell like,' Kissinger chortled to Senator Fulbright, regarding a dinner for African diplomats.

With racist views deeply embedded in the minds of U. S. policy-makers and rooted in domestic structures of domination and subordination, it is not surprising that these views have influenced the way in which Washington looked at and acted in the world outside.

The presence of a few non-whites in policymaking circles is not likely to change the nature of U.S. foreign policy very much; to attain positions of power, these individuals would have to have shown substantial conformity to the prevailing values of the elite. A substantial racial diversity among policy-makers, on the other hand, would likely make racism a less significant factor in the way Washington deals with the world. But such an occurrence is by no means imminent, and will not come to pass as long as racial inequality remains a fundamental characteristic of the U.S. domestic - landscape. Until this time, racism will continue to be an important factor in U.S. foreign policy.  http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Foreign_Policy/Sources_IA.html

De Amerikaanse historicus Daniel J. Castellano schreef in het essay Rooseveltian Imperialims:

The imperialist ideology of Theodore Roosevelt was in no small part motivated by a belief in the superiority of the race and civilization of Anglo-Saxon peoples, as articulated in his Autobiography and other writings. Many of the tropes and prejudices articulated under this overtly racist[1] theoretical framework have persisted today among American commentators when discussing 'developing nations' as squabbling, 'immature democracies,' full of unindustrious, corrupt, or cowardly leaders. Perhaps a recognition of the racist origins of these attitudes will give us pause in applying them instinctively in a neocolonialist context. Racism and nationalism are not as far apart as we would like to believe...

In his private correspondence, Roosevelt confessed to having a 'taste for ethnic contests,' [4] and he believed these were necessary so that the civilized nations should establish themselves over the barbaric nations. The great powers of the world had a twofold responsibility to suppress 'savagery and barbarism' and 'to help those who are struggling toward civilization.' [5] In Roosevelt's view, the expansion of the 'civilized' races was essential to world peace; otherwise 'warlike barbarians' such as the Turks and Sudanese Mahdists would gain ground, causing 'endless war.' [6] The decrease in foreign wars at the turn of the century was 'due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace to the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway.' [7] Modern imperialism, like that of ancient Rome, is identified with the promotion of peace throughout the world.

Ethnic contests, whether they took the form of military conquest or economic penetration, not only protected backward peoples from self-destructive warfare, but also served to 'prevent the higher races from losing their nobler traits and from being overwhelmed by the lower races.' [8] Roosevelt clearly saw the less civilized peoples as a threat to European and North American culture. By asserting and promoting Western culture aggressively, the West protected its own future against barbarian conquest. Active participation in ethnic contests forced Westerners to exercise their 'nobler traits,' which could be lost if they were conquered or assimilated by intermarriage.   http://www.arcaneknowledge.org/histpoli/roosevelt.htm

Vanuit deze geestelijke achtergrond opereerde Teddy Roosevelt. Desondanks blijft hij voor Geert Mak de president die streefde naar 'orde, evenwicht... ook in de rest van de wereld,' zonder dat Mak erbij vermeldt dat het hier gaat om de kapitalistische orde die al sinds 1492 de geschiedenis van de wereld dicteert. Een orde die door de favoriete historicus van de neoconservatieven, de Amerikaan Victor Davis Hanson, gedetailleerd beschreven werd in Why The West Has Won. Nine Landmark Battles in the Brutal History of Western Victory. Hanson toonde overtuigend aan dat de blanken de afgelopen vijf eeuwen gewonnen hebben louter en alleen omdat het christelijke Westen veel gewelddadiger was, veel meedogenlozer in zijn streven naar hegemonie dan welke gekleurde cultuur ook. Wij bezaten

the most lethal practice of arms conceivable. Let us hope that we at last understand this legacy. It is a weighty and sometimes ominous heritage that we must neither deny nor feel ashamed about -- but insist that our deadly manner of war serves, rather thans buries, our civilization.

Qua genocide scoren wij blanke westerlingen dan ook veruit het hoogst. De Amerikaanse hoogleraar American Studies, David E. Stannard, vat het als volgt kort samen in zijn studie American Holocaust. The conquest of the new world:

There were the unique horrors of the African slave trade, during the course of which at least 30.000.000 -- and possibly as many as 40.000.000 to 60.000.000 -- Africans were killed, most of them in the prime of their lives... And... the total extermination of many American Indian peoples and the near-extermination of others, in numbers that eventually totaled close to 100.000.000... For almost half a millennium Christians had been launching hideously destructive holy wars and massive enslavement campaigns against external enemies they viewed as carnal demons and described as infidels... During those same long centuries they had further expressed their ruthless intolerance of all persons and things that were non-Christian by conducting pogroms against the Jews who lived among them and whom they regarded as the embodiment of Antichrist -- imposing torture, exile, and mass destruction on those who refused to succumb to evangelical persuasion.

De Zweedse hoogleraar en auteur Sven Lindqvist onderstreept dit proces nog eens aan het eind van zijn boek Exterminate all the Brutes, wanneer hij concludeert dat

'Auschwitz de moderne industriële toepassing [was] van een uitroeiingspolitiek waarop de Europese overheersing van de wereld […] lang heeft gesteund.'

Lindqvist ontdekte gaandeweg dat de

Europese vernietiging van de 'inferieure rassen' van vier continenten de grond voorbereidde voor Hitlers vernietiging van zes miljoen joden in Europa… Het Europese expansionisme, vergezeld als het was door een schaamteloze verdediging van het uitroeien, schiep manieren van denken en politieke precedenten die de weg baanden voor nieuwe wandaden, die uiteindelijk culmineerden in de gruwelijkste van alle: de Holocaust… En toen hetgeen was gebeurd in het hart der duisternis werd herhaald in het hart van Europa, herkende niemand het. Niemand wilde toegeven wat iedereen wist. Overal in de wereld waar kennis wordt onderdrukt, kennis die als ze bekend zou worden gemaakt ons beeld van de wereld aan gruzelementen zou slaan en ons zou dwingen onszelf ter discussie te stellen – daar wordt overal het Hart der Duisternis opgevoerd. U weet dat al. Net als ik. Het is geen kennis die ons ontbreekt. Wat gemist wordt is de moed om te begrijpen wat we weten en daaruit conclusies te trekken.

Ook in Reizen zonder John worden die 'conclusies' niet getrokken, omdat het 'ons zou dwingen onzelf ter discussie te stellen.'  De lezers van Mak's boek zouden tot de slotsom komen dat de wereld gecompliceerder in elkaar zit dan de massamedia doen voorkomen en dat goed en kwaad in elkaar overlopen, en dat de ware vijand in onszelf zit en niet ergens daarbuiten in 'indian-country.' Dat verhaal is slecht voor de oplagecijfers. Zo'n boek wordt nooit een best-seller. Meer daarover morgen. Dan ook meer over de indianen die als eersten de consequenties van de Puriteinse ideologie van het uitverkoren zijn beseften. De historicus Anders Stephanson, hoogleraar Geschiedenis aan Columbia University, concludeert in zijn studie Manifest Destiny. American Expansion and the Empire of Right:

The message to the heathens outside was in this respect as radical as St. Paul's: see the light or perish in eternal damnation! Indians of New England thus faced the extremes of either submitting in obedience to God and His people or to an open-ended process of destruction.

Het is het manicheïsche denken van Jezus van Nazareth die volgens Matteus zou hebben gezegd: 'Wie niet met Mij is, is tegen Mij,' een zwart/wit opvatting die 2000 jaar later nog eens met iets andere woorden werd herhaald door president George W. Bush toen die tegenover de mensheid verklaarde: 'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.'  En dus worden de 'injuns' overal ter wereld nog steeds door de Amerikaanse machthebbers vervolgd.