The Horror, the Horror: Colonialism and the price to pay

Joseph Conrad wrote The Heart of Darkness in 1899. In part it was a reflection of a time he had spent in the Congo; as a crewman and later captain on a ship travelling up the Congo River when ‘The Congo’ was a colonial enterprise of King Leopold of Belgium.

The novella’s narrator is Marlow, telling of his experiences in the Congo as he prepares for a journey heading out from London. It is a dark story, a view on colonialism and the exploitation of the natives of the Congo and the impact it had on those sent to exploit the Congo for its various resources.

The white sepulture city is Brussels, headquarters of the royal enterprise engaged in on behest of King Leopold. The imagery of death and exploitation are deeply embedded in the early narrative which then drives the rest of the story, culminating in the quote of the character Kurtz, whose last words of his dying breath is “The Horror, The Horror”. When in the closing of the story, Marlow meets Kurtz’s fiancee, in answer to her question of what his final words were, he lies, he states that he called her name, to save her from any associated guilt the horrors may have left her with.

Various explanations have been offered as to why Conrad wrote such a dark novella about colonialism. Reasons given include that his homeland, Poland had been colonised, divided up and ruled by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and the Austrian Monarchy from 1772 till its restoration as an independent state in 1918 because of its support for the allied powers during WWI. It is suggested that Conrad left Poland because of the way the colonisers treated the native Polish population. He suffered the denigration of being colonised in much the same way the Irish have been denigrated by the British.

The descriptions of the horrors of colonisation are many in the story, culminating in the description of the place Marlow finds Kurtz. The heads of natives are impaled on posts leading to the cabin where Kurtz is dying.

While it is a novella, a work of fiction, it is based very much on the impact European colonialism had on Africa, the way the land was seen as a resource for the enrichment of the Colonial and Imperial powers, in firstly seeking wealth in gold and exotic spices, ivory and diamonds, and slaves to work the fields where ‘no white man could toil’.

Throughout the history of colonisation, going back even to Roman times, the colonised have suffered at the hands of the coloniser. The link between indigenous people and the land has been seen as a form of idolatry, the worship of nature, the concept of ‘mother earth’ as opposed to the coloniser’s view of the invaded territory as a resource, land to plunder for its mineral riches, land to force production of wealth through export marketable crops, sugar, tobacco, spices. Indigenous populations were either enslaved or removed if they would not buckle under the enforced labor, being replaced by an imported slave population.

Where indigenous labour was employed, it was at subsistence wages levels, sometime a ‘board and lodging’ arrangement, but essentially a form of labour which promised survival but through a second class system, where their status is less than that of the colonising population.

A good Australian example is the role of Aboriginal workers in the pastoral industry of Northern Territory and Western Australia prior to the 1967 referendum, which recognised our indigenous people are people, just like the immigrant settlers. That decision meant that Aboriginal workers had to be paid proper wages for their labour, and many, especially the Aboriginal stockmen were replaced by white workers using machines, motor cycles, motor vehicles and helicopters to muster stock.

Aboriginals were forced off the various stations which often were on their traditional lands, to establish camp sites near towns such as Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and others, on government pensions, and in their idle time, resort to drink at the local pub on pension day. A reduction, in steps from living traditional lives, to one of semi-slavery but at least with the provision of food and shelter, to a form of ‘shit life syndrome’ where all sense of worth is removed, resorting to drugs and alcohol became a form of solace. Family and racial violence followed as inevitably as night follows day.

The ‘Indian Wars’ in the US, from 1607 till the final battle at Wounded Knee were the results of treaty after treaty being broken; treaties which were to guarantee Native Americans their traditional lands including hunting rights were overturned time and again at the ‘manifest destiny’ of the white settlers was seen as their god given right to take the land in the ever moving quest westward, claiming lands, pushing aside the ‘heathen’ Indians. Building communities around their religions, building churches and preaching the gospel of love.

The attitude of privilege, of self righteousness, of dare I say blessedness drove the push for colonial expansion across the world from the 14th century and continues today most notably in the Middle East.

It is interesting to review these aspects of colonisation since as Conrad points out, the dehumanising, the diminishing of the colonised to be less than the colonisers, both in the lived experience of the colonised, that of seeing their traditions traduced and the coloniser, and for the settler who has lost the moral compass which the religions they have brought with them have encoded in their teachings and the holy texts they supposedly base their morals and ethics on.

The settlement of Israel by the Zionist, commencing in the late 1890s and supported by the British and ultimately endorsed through the newly formed United Nations is the latest expression of colonialism. From the Nakbah of 1948 which saw the forced removal of over 80% of Palestinians living in the newly formed State of Israel through to the defence of that territory in the Six-Day War in 1967, the early days were much like other colonisers, the building of a new state, development of industries and infrastructure, a frontiers mentality in claiming what was seen as the new settler’s rightful possession.

After the Six-Day War, Israel claimed the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights as their lands and have worked incessantly to deprive the Palestinian and Bedouin traditional owners of that land, the dignity of ownership, the dignity of having the land as a source for food production and the communities that have dwelt on those lands as long as people have dwelt there. (That may be subject to claim, that the Jews were expelled from their during Roman times, but there is enough evidence to support the claim that the Romans expelled the religious leaders from Jerusalem, the rural community of Jews, farmers, trades people, were needed, Rome had an army to feed.)

The Path To 7 October

Israel’s Occupation is a study by Neve Gordon, (University of California Press, 2008) where distinctions between Israelis and Palestinians is explored.

We hear news, see clips online and in the news broadcasts of the war on Gaza, and repeatedly are told that the cause of the war is the events of 7 October, 2023, but an action as brutal as that, as violent, as despicable, mounted by a small army of heavily armed men does not just arrive out of nowhere. There is a build up of anger, of despair, of a sense of deprivation, a sense of imprisonment based solely on being an ‘other’, being marginalised because of a designation which makes the attackers feel unvalued. That sense of worthlessness built up as any sense of autonomy has been stripped away, that lives feel so controlled, so manipulated that a breaking point is reached.

‘Don’t rule them. Let them lead their own lives.’ (Moshe Dayan, 1967)

A few hours after the Israeli military had captured the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, site of Al-Aqsa compound, one of Islam’s holy sites, soldiers wanted to raise the Israeli flag over it, but Moshe Dayan, Israel’s Defence Minister, refused to allow that, pointing instead to a strategy of trying to normalise the occupation by concealing Israel’s presence. In effect, allowing the Palestinians who lived there, now in occupied lands, to live a normal, peaceful life, and yet control most aspects of their daily lives.

Three areas were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War: Gaza, West Bank and Golan Heights, and the administration of each was different, yet common was the complete control of Palestinians living in those areas.

Surveillance measures were set up to monitor all aspects of life in the occupied territories, the electronic items owned, TV’s refrigerators, stoves, as well as livestock, machinery, orchards. School textbooks were scrutinised and modified to ensure that education standards reinforced the legitimacy of Israeli occupation. Education centred on practice skills, trades to prepare Palestinians for the role of labourers in the developing of Israel infrastructure and as cheap labour for construction within Israel.

To legitimise the occupation of West Bank and Golan Heights, Israel named them the biblical names, Samaria and Judea, drawing the connection between the state of Israel and the biblical land of Israel. Further, the Green Line, the border agreed in the 1949 Armistice Agreement was removed from maps being produced, effectively removing that border, erasing the distinction between the legitimate, agreed confines ion Israel and the occupied territories, opening the way for the gradual settlement by the growing Israeli population.

Israel controlled all major resources. The sound water aquifer was sourced to provide water to the growing urban and agricultural development west of the Jordan River, Israel. Roads built connecting Israeli settlements with Jerusalem and other population centres were restricted fir use only by Israelis, even though the workers who built those roads were Palestinian labourers. Palestinian movement was closely controlled with checkpoints randomly placed when deemed appropriate. Even to have checkpoints several hundred metres apart, adding to the inconvenience of daily essential travel for Palestinians.

Control in Gaza was different, yet had the same controlling motivation. Gaza was fenced off, the supply of water, electricity was controlled. Border checkpoints were installed to restrict movement in and out of Gaza, movement for workers employed in Israel for the labour required in infrastructure development and construction, even the provision of medical services which were not available, and passage through depended on the mood of the government or the border guards at any particular time.

Labourers and service workers employed by the Israeli were paid far less than Israeli workers.

Over time, the discriminations against Palestinians increased. Rules changed, and as was common in most colonial occupations, any resistance was deemed to be terrorist actions, the punishments dealt out were severe, while the actions of the illegal settlers, the theft of land is seen as a right for the occupiers. A recent, Academy Award winning documentary, ‘No Other Land’ clearly demonstrates the frustrations of being Palestinian in the occupied territories. The film is available through Prime, and been shown in cinemas throughout Australia. It shows the destruction of a village on the West Bank on land the army ‘needed’ for military activities. A village population is given short warning and within days their homes are bulldozed and they are rendered homeless.

Frustrations build and build. The sense of powerlessness increases day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year until there is the last straw, the one that breaks the camel’s back.

There have been a number of intifadas, a term meaning ‘shaking off’, literally a means for an oppressed people to ‘shake off’ a power that is oppressing them. The means used have been civil disobedience, a resisting the forces of oppression, whether it is through a form of strike action, refusing to work or to throw rocks at soldiers patrolling the occupied territories. The ubiquity of the ongoing surveillance where armed soldiers are positioned on roof tops, in clear view of the unarmed population, the constant harassment of searches of vehicles at check points, the never-ending military presence and the severity of punishments when arrested for simple actions as throwing rocks toward the soldiers.

And each retaliation is met with disproportionate force

In the exchange of hostages for prisoners during the current Gaza war, the numbers have been incredible, fifty to one Palestinian prisoners to Israeli hostages is a guess, but will be close to the mark, as is the fatality rate, 1200 Israelis killed on 7 October to 62,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza.

Whenever there is a report on the ongoing disaster which is Gaza, reference is made to the 7 October attack. And while agreeing that the attack was horrific, that the kidnapping and deaths of people attending a music festival was incredibly brutal, what is never mentioned is that the conditions which led to that attack, the frustrations, the virtual imprisonment of two and half million people in Gaza and the ongoing harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank, the ongoing theft of lands for illegal settlement leaves very few options for protest.

The horror, the horror of colonialism continues and the price is paid by both the coloniser and the colonised.

The coloniser needs to defend the lands taken, needs to guard against insurgency while the colonised face the on going frustrations of marginalisation, of oppression, of dehumanisation, the ongoing pain of seeing the lands of their birth being raped for the wealth they will never see.

Pete Seeger’s anti-war song, ‘Where have all the flowers gone’ repeats the line ‘When will they ever learn’ at the end of each verse, but the last verse, a repeat of the first closes the song with ‘When will WE ever learn’.

My question is: will we ever learn?

 

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