Counterfactualising colonial dependency

Imagine, back in the day, those whiteman ships landing in africa and other places (including polynesia) rounding up the natives and herding them off to foreign lands to work as slaves for christian eurotopia and its colonies.

then imagine if they'd instead treated the natives with dignity and equality, married them, bred with them and carried them of to foreign lands to become first class citizens by allowing them the same opportunities to land and education.

how different would things have been now ?

given the class warfare already rampant in the new world at the time and still, the constant demand for new workers to fuel the needs of the market, and warriors to extend the empire and defend the status quo, it was and still is easier to use and abuse native trust.

the end result being the dead that now walk the earth as witnessed in the latest tragedy unfolding in Haiti.

all those black faces you see wandering the night as zombies (the living dead) dont belong there. they are the result of transplanted slaves and colonial expansion from times gone by without a thought for the aftermath of what happens when the goodtimes end for the eurotopian ideal.

the irony is that haiti, (long seen as the spiritual home for voodoo and zombies) as a violent failed state by western standards now has the opportunity to rebuild itself in its own best image but what is that image ?

being poor and black/brown will always be disadvantageous in the modern world. decent housing, education and food is for the most part a dream and many will always be reliant on the charity of those more fortunate

at least those most oppressed in haiti had shelter, water, sanitation, food and in some measure, self respect/determination. now having nothing and being reliant on foreign aid i wonder how much more damaging the effect will be on the national psyche. their roots being what the colonial powers nurtured by planting them there, making them welfare dependent and leaving them unprepared to carry on past their use by date.

watching the reports on TV i see hiphop wannabe gangsters in doo rags and nikes, seduced by the media to believe they can have it all, complaining about having nothing now, not realising that they never had anything to begin with, just a well orchestrated lie as a hope of something to strive towards. many expecting and demanding international aid and relief as though it is owed to them to live by the same standard as everyone else in an enlightened society.

the billions needed in reconstruction will never come. the empathy currently felt towards haiti will vanish as quickly as the rotting corpses littering the landscape. scooped up with little respect and dumped in mass graves, out of mind and out of sight. the rush of journos will soon tire of touring the devastation and turn their attention back once again to the desires of their media overlords as the semblance of good will and charity become exhausted by bureaucratic bungling and inevitable corruption.

the western public desensitised by information overload will simply change the channel back to sports, grab another beer and go back to wishing they were tiger woods.

the haitians will of course be expected to be humble, gracious and accepting of their fate consigned to life in a tent, scavenging, surviving on aid packages dreaming of a utopia that will never happen in the capitalist real world.

and i think, it didnt have to be that way !