Eduardo Galeano Connected the Dots Between Colonialism, Capitalism and Racism

Eduardo Galeano Connected the Dots Between Colonialism, Capitalism and Racism
Sunday, 06 September 2015 00:00
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Book Review


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It is estimated more than eight million men have died over the centuries mining silver for European colonizers at the Cerro
Rico mine in Bolivia.It is estimated more than eight million men have died over the centuries mining silver for European
colonizers at the Cerro Rico mine in Bolivia. (Photo: Attraction Voyages Bolivie / Flickr)
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One of the brilliant gifts of Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillaging of a Continent is that it stops historically in the 1970s, yet provides a knowledge base with which to understand the contemporary evolution of the relationship between colonialism, capitalism and racism.

Sara Bernard, a journalist for Grist, recently interviewed Melina Laboucan-Massimo, an activist member of the indigenous First Nations in Canada. Laboucan-Massimo spoke of the severe challenges facing First Nations because of the historical and current political forces that control them and their environment:

"The systems of patriarchy, capitalism, colonization, and imperialism are based on a system of power and dominance," Laboucan-Massimo said, "When you have these types of systems governing the way a society lives, that's how people are being treated on the ground."

Although speaking of the Eurocentric domination of Canada's indigenous population - and certainly applicable to the conquest and ongoing relationship with US indigenous peoples - her words also accurately describe the relation of European powers (and more recently the United States) to South and Central America.

More:
http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/32667-eduardo-galeano-connected-the-dots-between-colonialism-capitalism-and-racism

Good reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016131651