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Charles Christopher Tucker

Revolutions, past and present

It's summer, sometimes associated with light reading. My light reading of the moment is the first of the two Jeff Shara historical novels set in pre-Revolution America.

Yet, while my reading is light the news is not. In another part of the world, across an ocean, our country is trying to force its will upon two other countries.

Reading the thoughts of a fictional Franklin pondering the British attempts at making right through might gives me cause to wonder about our own colonialism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yes, there are obvious differences. The majority of the Colonists believed they were British before the revolution and that is why they had such a tough time being treated as though they were but savages, to be taxed and ignored. In Afghanistan and Iraq the people have no concept of ever being of the United States, so they are even less likely to want to seek a middle ground between the oppression of corporate colonialism and revolt against the United States.

For those who would talk of how we "liberated" Afghanistan and Iraq let me bring up the fact that our hands are guilty in creating the governments which oppressed those people. Support for the Mujahadeen led to the Taliban and I don't need to link to a photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein to remind a reader that he was a favorite of Republican administrations past.

What bothers me most about considering our own country's founding and these two current incidents of revolution is that we are the children of revolution trying to deny revolution to others. What would Jefferson, Franklin and Adams have to say about our country visciously invading and dominating other countries half a world away and treating them far worse than our own Colonial predecessors were treated?

Posted on Sunday, August 8, 2004 at 3:34 PM | Comments (0) | Return

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