God’s people and colonialism
By Bert Hetebry
In the Bible book of Exodus, chapter 20 gives the people of Israel the Ten Commandments, the sixth says “Thou shalt not kill” and the eighth says “Thou shalt not steal”.
Through the rise of Christendom in Europe these commandments were well known and became part of the legal structure in all European kingdoms and later nation states.
The Ten Commandments also form the basis of laws in Judaism and Islam.
But to whom do the laws apply? Who is protected by those laws?
It is interesting to place them on a timeline of sorts, starting with the story of Moses meeting with God on Mount Sinai shortly after the Israelites had escaped from slavery in Egypt where God inscribed those laws on rock tablets for the people to learn what God’s will was for them.
40 years later, the next generation of Israelites are near the city of Jericho and a command is given that the city be sacked and all living things in it be killed except for Rahab and her family because she had sheltered the spies sent to case the city. The silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron were placed into the treasury.
Reading this account of the destruction of Jericho and reflecting on the acquisition of the ‘New World’ by the European Colonists from the time of Columbus in 1495 or there about, it seems that the law applied only to those considered to be ‘God’s people’.
Early explorers commented how they were experienced hospitality and kindness from the Indigenous peoples they came across, especially those who had not encountered the explorers previously. There is a story from the early days of settlement in Western Australia where an explorer in need of water had befriended a couple of Aboriginal boys, fed them salted meat and tied them down in the evening, setting them loose in the morning so they could be followed as they sought to quench their thirst. The explorers were greeted in a friendly manner, but the boys were abused to satisfy the explorers’ need for water. They were probably more fearful of the strangers after that encounter.
There is the amazing story by Robert Macklin, Castaway, the story of a French cabin boy who is abandoned in 1858 and is taken in by the local Aboriginal people, adopted and initiated into the tribe, and is eventually ‘rescued’ and returned home to France. The story tells of the protocols of living in tribal territories and the punishments for not following those protocols, the respect afforded to territorial rites and customs. The story is set in the Daintree region of Far North Queensland, and the young man’s ‘rescue’ in 1875 was at the time of the colonial land grab which ignored the Indigenous protocols and wrested the land and spiritual connections from the Aboriginal inhabitants.
Much the same in Australia’s early exploration. When the Batavia ran aground at the Abrolhos islands in 1628 several teenaged boys who were involved in the mutiny on that ill-fated journey were put ashore on the main land, and when 200 years later settlers arrived in the Geraldton region it was noted that the were blue eyed, blonde Aboriginals and a rock painting inland near Mullewa depicted a skeleton of a sailing ship swell as more permanent structures that found elsewhere in region, following a European building style, rock walls and beams used for a roof.
As with most Indigenous peoples, strangers were initially greeted in more or less friendly manners but that changed when bullets were fired from guns or the visitors seems to want to stay, taking land. Ironically, the flag raising ceremony at Sydney cove 236 years ago included a worship service thanking God for the safe passage and asking for His blessing on the newly founded settlement. The land was effectively being stolen and the Aboriginal people who resisted were killed, a pattern which was repeated time and again as the settlement expanded… well maybe not with calls for God’s blessing, but murder and land theft were the principle means of acquiring the land, followed soon after by missionaries to preach the gospel of grace to replace the spiritual connections the Indigenous had with the land, the cycle of life, everything coming from Mother Earth and returning to Mother Earth.
Essentially, Aboriginal people were not considered to be God’s People, and so the laws did not apply, killing those who resisted the theft of their land could be killed.
That is a pattern which was repeated throughout the period of colonisation, Indigenous people were not God’s People and could be taken to be enslaved on the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, or displaced in the quest for farmlands rather than the wasteful hunter gatherer means of sourcing sustenance.
Likewise, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1835 of the condition of the American Indians that “By dispersing their families, by obscuring their traditions, by disrupting their chain of memories… European tyrannies made them more unruly and less civilised than they were before.” (Joe Keohane: The Power of Strangers. P60)
The impact of the loss of identity, the arrogance of colonisers not respecting the cultures of Indigenous peoples, the replacement of cultures through removing people from their lands and placing them in missions to learn about a foreign God and to prepare the people for subservient roles in the invading society. In essence, a ‘lesser minds’ situation, where the Indigenous peoples are considered less than the invader, less to the extent that they may be considered sub-human, dumb, not like ‘us’. Or to take them from their lands in chains to be slaves in the new agricultural industries, whether sold as slaves in faraway places or forced labour on what used to be their land.
We cannot turn the clock back, and I am not suggesting that we should, however when we look at the ‘Closing the Gap’ failures we see that the paternalism of ‘in-group favoritism’ is applied, where lip service is paid to the very obvious needs of the Indigenous population but the money and structures used to deal with them are controlled by politicians and bureaucrats, well-intentioned but essentially self-serving and falling short of respecting the real needs and real cultural imperatives which are denied because they are seen as ‘lesser minds’.
It is interesting to note that the problems addressed in the ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative are similar to most colonised peoples, high rates of imprisonment, drug and alcohol abuse, family violence, lower life expectancy and so on, and are linked very closely to the denial of original cultures, the stripping away of language and the spiritual elements which formed so much of Indigenous way of life, whether Australian First Nations people, North American Indians, Inuit people or any other we could name. Their lands were stolen, dissenters were killed, identity disparaged, people dehumanised and missionaries took over the role of educators and culture replacers which without any sense of irony taught the Ten Commandments as the basis for the new laws of the land.
It seems that not a lot has been learned when we view the ongoing crisis in Palestine/Israel, where since the late 19th Century Zionists have sought to colonise, take back the land promised to Abraham by God in the book of Genesis. Since 1948 the explosion of the Palestinian peoples has been an ongoing activity, culminating in what we currently see, the devastation of Gaza and the perpetual dehumanisation of those living on the West Bank, with the rhetoric from the Israeli Prime Minister quoting Biblical calls to destroy the Amalekites (Exodus 17:8-15) for the annihilation of Palestinians.
It really does seem that the laws, you shall not kill, you shall not steal only apply to those who are ‘God’s People.’
I wish that God would give me an answer to that deep conundrum.
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10 comments
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Phil Pryor -
Lyndal -
andyfiftysix -
John C -
calculus witherspoon. -
New England Cocky -
Kerri -
wam -
Frank Sterle Jr. -
Steve Davis
Return to home pageBert will not find an answer from any god who never existed. All the jews, protestants, catholics, orthodox, islamists are wrong, and they KNOW that all the others are and were wrong, always. There is no personal appearance, signature, footprint, DNA sample, corroboration by witnesses, Nothing, ever. Just mindless, brainless, “lovely”, ancient superstition and scribble. There can be no legal basis for claiming promised lands, being chosen people, being saved, select, blessed, different, anointed, utterly supreme and righteously triumphant. But, there has been endless murder, theft, occupation, humiliation, slavery, agony.
To follow on from Phil’s comment, you also find this concept of being especially privileged by God, entitled, special etc, becomes a mark of smaller and wealthier groups. There are the elite, who are the most deserving, and all the rest. And it seems that such elites are ever threatened by the numerous others, so must maintain their level of privilege and defend their possessions through gaining political and enforcement controls.
Once, they had their laws engraved on stone tablets, and a priesthood to threaten eternal punishments, , now they hold the levers of the economy and government
I also want to know who this god person is and how much of a bribe i have to pay to get his serious attention.
hey god, if you want attention, now is the right time……….
I also want to know who the ” elites” are. Are they the smart people or just the people who make the rules?
We see this “promised” land everywhere where there is conflict. Russia wants “its own” back. Palestinians want to unshackle themselves from the Israeli tyrants. China wants “taiwan” which they never had but now want badly.
Just goes to show how wrong western ‘civilasation’ has been for thousands of years. Blaming their greed and lust for more on a fictional being that science is pretty damn close to proving does not and never did exist. That’ll be one the jesus freaks will never accept on matter how true it is) It is one of our species biggest downfalls, our belief that some ‘higher being’ put us here for some special reason and that everything else on this planet is ours to rape and pillage at will. Our species has so much potential to advance for good but religious beliefs (especially by organised religion) has held us back for two thousand years, more if you believe the old testament’s ultra crap of the earth starting in 4004BC. OUr ability to imagine has enabled us to advance so far in technology and exploration yet we still bow down to mythical beliefs from the dark ages. “Dog’ help us!
Smiles, Folk with Musket in one hand and Bible in the other.
Later it was botoxed to Spencerian Social Darwinism, a travesty of Darwin’s idea, when religion fell out of favour- had to be s “scientific” alibi instead.
It is true that people have been conducting massacres rationalised away through religion or a perversion of ideology for greed and bloodlust, all kinds of subjectivities.
Even Chimpanzee troops can have such “wars”- “othering” goes back millions of years.
History is no excuse for the IDF ZION@ZI FANATICS PRACTICING GENOCIDE OF THE INDIGENOUS PALESTINIANS, DISPLACING & DISPOSSESSING THEM, TO DATE OVER 26,000 MAINLY WOMEN & CHILDREN, FOR THE BENEFIT OF AMERICAN & EUROPEAN ENTREPRENEURS WANTING CLEAR LEGAL TITLE TO THE ”STOLEN” LANDS FOR FRESH ZION@ZI COLONIST SETTLERS ESCAPING RUSSIAN CONSCRIPTION, AMERICAN CHAOS OR EUROPEAN INDIFFERENCE.
As Rabbi Dovid Feltham of the Neturei Karta explained, you can only agree with the belief that god gave the lands to certain people if you too hold to that belief and that god.
That ‘do not kill’ does not refer to animals even those who look like us.
While some peoples have been brutally victimized throughout history a disproportionately large number of times, the victims of one place and time can and sometimes do become the victimizers of another place and time. People should avoid believing, let alone claiming, that they/we are not capable of committing an atrocity, even if relentlessly pushed.
Contrary to what is claimed or felt by many of us, deep down there’s a potential monster in each of us that, under the just-right circumstances, can be unleashed; and maybe even more so when convinced that God is on our side.
It’s an obvious atrocity that so many Palestinian non-combatants are being prevented from accessing safety/sanctuary, not to mention starved of food. Yet, Western politicians, especially U.S. Republicans, have gone into their ‘Christian’ mode by withholding humanitarian aid for literally starving Palestinians. Jesus must be spinning!
But Christ practiced and preached the opposite of what enables the most horrible acts of human cruelty to occur on this planet. Sadly, sometimes those atrocious acts are allowed to remain a buried secret.
Meantime, institutional Christianity/Christians [i.e. those most resistant to Christ’s fundamental teachings of non-violence, compassion and non-wealth] seem to insist upon creating their Creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image; for example, proclaiming at publicized protests that ‘God hates’ such-and-such group of people.
Actually, Jesus likely enjoyed a healthy laugh over a good-albeit-clean joke with his disciples, now and then. But few theists can imagine the divine having a good sense of humor. Often being the most vocal, they make very bad examples of Christ’s fundamental message, especially to the young and impressionable. This is why I openly critique those in public life who claim to be Christian yet behave nothing like Christ nor his basic teachings.
Many institutional ‘Christians’ may find inconvenient, if not plainly annoying, trying to reconcile the conspicuous inconsistency in the fundamental nature of the New Testament’s Jesus with the wrathful, vengeful and even jealous nature of the Old Testament’s Creator. The Biblical Jesus most profoundly washed his disciples’ feet, the act clearly revealing that he took corporeal form to serve. And that he, as a hopeful example of the humility of the divine, joined humankind in our miseries, joys and everything in between.
Followers of Islam and Judaism generally believe, however, that Jesus did exist but was not a divine being, albeit Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet. After all, how could any divine being place himself/itself down to the level of humans — and even lower, by some other standards? How could any divine entity not be a physical conqueror — far less allow himself to be publicly stripped naked, severely beaten and murdered in such a belittling manner? For me, this makes Jesus even greater, not less divine.
Though no pushover, Jesus fundamentally was about compassion and charity. His teachings and practices epitomize so much of the primary component of socialism — do not hoard morbidly gratuitous wealth in the midst of poverty. He clearly would not tolerate the accumulation of tens of billions of dollars by individual people — especially while so many others go hungry and homeless.
What would Christ have said about ‘Christians’ who, for example, support superfluously rich men who have done nothing remotely resembling Christ-like conduct? I’m talking about Jesus through his teachings and practices — not pragmatism, politics or conservative/liberal goals. I mean the savior who hardly can be imagined rolling his eyes and sighing: ‘Oh well, I’m against everything the politician stands for, but what can you do when you dislike even more what his competition stands for’. …
Am I alone in suspecting that Jesus is spinning in heaven knowing what atrocious conduct is connected to Christ-ianity, however institutionally so?
Frank Sterle Jr., a great and thoughtful comment.
And no, you are not alone.