Derrick Broze

August 25, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) It’s 2015 and the human species is capable of flying to space, curing diseases, and putting a computer in your pocket, yet despite all of our great accomplishments, humankind still finds itself mired in conflict. Amid wars for independence, wars of attrition, or simply wars for conquest — whatever the cause of such conflicts — we cannot deny that our existence is one of constant warring.

When we examine the history of war, we find certain behaviors that are consistently inflicted by the conqueror on the conquered. One of the behaviors is still very evident in our world today: the act of destroying the culture of the conquered peoples. Whether it means destroying personal items or full-scale demolition of important buildings and centers of commerce and trade, we still see this strategy in action, especially as it pertains to the Islamic State, or ISIS.

The New York Times reports:

“Islamic State militants have razed a fifth-century Roman Catholic monastery and blown up one of the best-preserved first-century temples in Palmyra, the ancient Syrian city that is one of the world’s most important archaeological sites, according to government officials and local activists. And that was just this past week — in one Syrian province. Yet the cumulative destruction of antiquities has reached staggering levels that represent an irreversible loss to world heritage and future scholarship, archaeological experts and antiquities officials say.”

ISIS has also bulldozed mud-brick ruins at Hatra and Nimrud and destroyed statues at the Mosul Museum in Northern Iraq (the statues ended up being fakes, but the point stands). In eastern Syria, ISIS continues to steal and sell important artifacts.

Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria’s director general of antiquities, told the Times that his inability to protect Palmyra has made him “the saddest director general in the world.” Abdulkarim says that Syria’s antiquities and cities have survived for thousands of years and are “not for the government or the opposition, they are for all Syrians. It’s for you also — for American people, for European people, for Japanese people. It’s all your heritage.”

The destruction of history and important cultural items in Syria and Iraq is absolutely disgusting, but it is an unfortunate consequence of war. When one side feels justified in their conflict, they often wish to demoralize the enemy by capturing and erasing their history. But while the war in Syria and Iraq rages and American politicians use the loss of antiquity as an excuse for an even more hawkish foreign policy, it is important to take a moment to look at the United States government’s role in attempting to destroy native cultures and traditions.

One of the biggest supporters of launching a full-scale war against ISIS is Arizona Senator John McCain. The senator is lauded as a war hero and strong American, but the truth is much more sinister. McCain has recently received criticism for his role in passing the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange bill as part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. The law allows for the sale of the Oak Flat campground to international mining company, Rio Tinto. Oak Flat is historically important to the San Carlos Apache. MintPress News recently documented the move:

“The Apache Stronghold formed in December in response to a last-minute legislative provision included in the the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015. The provision at issue in the annual Defense Department funding bill grants Resolution Copper Mining, a subsidiary of Australian-English mining giant Rio Tinto, a 2,400-acre land parcel which includes parts of the Tonto National Forest, protected national forest in Arizona where it will create the continent’s largest copper mine. Some of those lands are considered sacred by multiple Native American communities, including the Oak Flat campground. The area is not recognized as part of the San Carlos Apache Reservation, but it has historically been used by the Apache for trading purposes and spiritual ceremonies.”

Thankfully, we are seeing the youth of a new American Indian Movement stand up and directly oppose people like McCain. Oak Flat is only one example of the modern struggles of native peoples around the United States. Resistance to modern colonization and theft of lands continues in Utah, New Mexico (here, and here), and many, many other places sacred to the indigenous communities of this landmass.

However, we must remember that the colonization and erasing of cultures does not only come through the destruction of important buildings. Although the majority of tribes and nations in the United States were hunter-gatherer societies that did not necessarily create monolithic structures, land was and still is very important to Native peoples. As we saw with the Oak Flat area, many parts of what we now call the United States of America have a historical and spiritual importance to the Native communities that have been here for generations.

Since the time of European colonization, Natives were forced westward as more and more settlers sought (and stole) land for farming and mining. This caused not only a disconnect with areas that have powerful spiritual significance, but also limited the ability of the communities to continue lifestyles they had become accustomed to for thousands of years. Not only was access to open land taken by the invaders, Buffalo hunting routes that followed migration were also disturbed, as were communities that relied on specific bodies of water for fishing and survival.

Indeed, the theft of land and refusal to follow treaties was a continuous spark for fighting between the tribes and the European colonizers. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson and the United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which authorized the president to exchange Native American land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river. The Act forced around 100,000 Natives to move West. Although the law was written as if the relocation was voluntary, the majority of Native leaders were pressured to sign the removal treaties. This action led to the horrendous Trail of Tears, where over 16,000 natives were forced to move to “Indian Territory.” Estimates of death from the Trail of Tears range from 2,000 to 6,000 Natives.

Forced removal was not the only method of subjugation. There are also records of British Army officials giving smallpox infected blankets to native communities to attempt to exterminate them as a people. Once gold was discovered in California in the mid-19th century, more settlers poured into the West en masse, further destroying lands that Native communities depended on for hunting and fishing.

Once the Native communities were resettled, we saw the creation of boarding schools to finish the job of colonization by stealing Native children from their families, prohibiting them from speaking their language, changing their names, and cutting their hair. Anti-Media recently reported that these practices continue in 2015, with Alabama prisons forcing Natives to cut their hair despite spiritual and religious protections.

As we have seen, there is no need to look to the Middle East or ISIS in search of examples of violence, deception, theft, and destruction. The atrocities committed by that group are just that — atrocities — and they should be condemned as such. But we cannot allow the American parasite class to direct the public’s attention outwardly, keeping our focus on the crimes of foreign nations and governments. Rather, we should be willing to acknowledge that the U.S. government, since its inception, has been responsible for the same immorality that the politicians claim to oppose.

Only when we are ready to admit the truth and face reality can we take the first steps to creating a truly free, empowered, and unified world.

This article (Media Focuses on Artifacts Destroyed by ISIS While Ignoring Destruction of Native American Sites) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.