Greed, Settler Colonialism and Ethnic Cleansing

In six weeks, the people of St. Vincent and the Grenadines will engage in activities to mark National Heroes Day and commemorate the death of our sole national Hero,the Right Excellent Joseph Chatoyer.

The killing of Chatoyer and the military victory of the British colonisers led to a virtual land grab by British settlers, many of them rewarded by the British crown for some previous action.

HIS-torians who documented events were fond of writing about what they called “Carib attacks” on British settlements but little or nothing about the savagery unleashed on the communities of the Garifuna and Kalinago people. This was settler colonialism in the classic sense. What is worse, this land grab followed on not just individual acts of greed and cruelty, but also a ruthless policy of what today is officially recognised globally as ethnic cleansing.

The most notorious example was the rounding up of the Garifuna people and the expulsion of some 5000 of them from their own homeland. It led to the genocide on Balliceaux, a barren island on which over 2000 of them perished. Many more were to die on their further expulsion to Central America. It was their resilience which today can boast of homes in Belize, in Dangriga, Punta Gorda etc as well as in Honduras and Guatemala.

We must never lose the connection between the ethnic cleansing right here on our shores which paved the way for the unbridled expansion of plantation slavery using African labour.

We may not realise it but we here in these tiny islands experienced ethnic cleansing as part of our painful historical experience. We therefore are in a position to identify with and commiserate with the victims of ethnic cleansing in other parts of the world – in Palestine and Myanmar for instance.

I was born in the year 1948, the year of the institution of an official policy of ethnic cleansing against the

Palestinian people instigated, funded and supported by international imperialism which allowed Zionist settlers to drive the Palestinian people from their own land and make them into homeless refugees. They were to suffer the fate of the Garifuna and Kalinago. Settler colonialism became entrenched in the Middle East.

But this was not a rare occurrence. If you read and understand anything about the history of the western hemisphere for instance, our part of the world, the Spanish, so-called conquistadors, were the original worst offenders wiping out entire populations of Aztec, Maya, Inca and Ameridian people to impose cruel

Spanish rule and European customs and institutions.

They may have set the pace, but those who followed their pattern continued in this vein. This was the foundation of the United States of America, greed eyeing the lands of the indigenous people. It was even codified in a policy, called Manifest Destiny, in which the

European settler population in the USA, greedily coveting the vast lands occupied by the indigenous people, came up with what they called Manifest Destiny, the right of the settler population and the US State to rule

North America, the western hemisphere and today, the entire population of the world.

This is what guides the policies of the Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s of this world. The resources of others are considered legitimate targets for those to whom the right to this Manifest Destiny is self-given. It should not be strange that in the midst of discussing the Palestinian tragedy, President Trump should refer, publicly, to Gaza as a “beautiful piece of real estate”, the lives and livelihood of the Palestinian people not even considered.

This approach underlines the idea being floated now that just as the Garifuna and Kalinago people were kicked off their own land, to make way for European settlers, the Palestinian people should be shunted off to

Egypt and Jordan to make way for Israeli settlers, and maybe Trump Towers as well. It is as though the sovereignty of the people of Egypt and Jordan does not count, nor does the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to their own beautiful piece of, dare I say it, “real estate”.

Those are the underlying principles which count most. Greed led to settler colonialism, Manifest Destiny and modern imperialism. But the people of Palestine have demonstrated what it is to assert the right to one’s homeland. In spite of the horrific destruction of Gaza, the genocide against its people, there they are, in full view of the rest of the world, a full half a million walking back to their devastated homeland in just 72 hours to assert their right to their homeland.

We are a small nation with meagre resources, but the experience of our ancestors and the heroism of the

Palestinian people must be shining examples and inspirations to us. When we observe National Heroes Day, we must remember that we too have suffered at the hands of the greedy, fallen prey to settler colonialism and endured, and survived ethnic cleansing. They are part of our historical legacy which should inform our demands for reparatory justice.

• Renwick Rose is a Social and Political commentator.