After first discovering Marx a couple of years ago I soon
began to realise just how valuable of a tool Marxist analysis is for
discovering the antagonisms in today’s society. I’ve never had a problem with
refugees or immigrants personally. Often you hear people say things such as “You
can walk through town and not hear a word of English bla bla bla,” personally I’ve
always thought that was pretty cool, that so many people from around the world
have chosen my country to live in. It made me proud to be British.
I think the shit that immigrants and people of other
religions get in our country is nothing short of disgusting. And what annoys me
the most is that people can be so blind with hate of “the other” that they will
overlook tax avoiding billionaires, and vote for warmongering political
leaders, and then lose their shit when people from other countries that we bomb
or exploit want to live here. I think the thing that benefitted me most about
Marxism is that I no longer see Us (British) vs them (not British), but I see
the rich people in each country as a group, and the poor people in each country
as a group.
That’s what dependency theory is all about really. The rich
countries stay rich at the expense of the poor countries, and whether we like
it or not, our lifestyle is upheld by the exploitation of cheaper labour of
people the international system deems less valuable than us. I mean I’m not
saying we’re all terrible people, It’s not like we have much a choice, it is a
lifestyle we are born into, and one that we become indoctrinated and reliant on
at a young age.
But the problem I have is our attitude towards our fellow human beings who are also being oppressed by the exact same system that oppresses us. We as a country only have our wealth due to imperialism, war, exploitation and slavery, we shouldn’t be allowed to carry on exploiting these people whilst turning them away from a better life. The British empire is nothing to be proud of, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, all we have to do is recognise the imbalance that is currently present in today’s society due to our ancestor’s choices. We need to re-balance the scales, and we need to do our best to help all other nations of whom we colonised, stole resources from, and exploited to develop and progress in any way they see fit, and this should be at our expense.
But I think we’re pretty far from achieving reparations for the countries that we pillaged in the past. Instead we are upholding a system that is just as oppressive as it ever was. Not a single British person can benefit from the wealth we have exploited, and the labour we continue to exploit in the poorer countries in the world, and then tell immigrants and people of whom contribute to our way of life to “fuck off back to their own country”.
After what Europe and America have done to the poorer countries and their governments in the past 70 years, not a single person seeking refuge or a better life from those countries should be marginalized and systemically demonized by large parts of the population. We have staged countless Coup d'état’s in countries with socialist or communist governments, we have destabilized any government who wouldn’t play ball with American capitalism, we are responsible for the rise in terrorism and deaths of countless innocent people in the countries we bomb and invade, and then when people from these countries risk their lives to get to safety, we show them nothing but hate. I can’t articulate just how angry this makes me. To have your whole way of life being upheld by the exploitation and slavery of others, and if they try to seek a better life they become the enemy.
Britain and the West’s imperialist attitude has been instilled so deeply into society and intertwined with liberalism, that the new forms of oppression are appearing in globally accepted norms. The only way to explain this is that the elite class in each country care more about each other and themselves, than they do about the poor in their respective countries. They all collude to maintain this way of life, making sure that their relative gains to people in their country will remain at a maximum at all times. This is why governments and the ruling classes in poorer countries sell their resources cheap, if they are allowed to stay in power by the western governments, they can be free to exploit their country as much as they want. It also explains why anytime a socialist or communist party comes into power, they are soon overthrown with the help of America and Europe. Less wealth will be going to the important nations if those socialist leaders are sharing it all out with their poor people.
But the problem I have is our attitude towards our fellow human beings who are also being oppressed by the exact same system that oppresses us. We as a country only have our wealth due to imperialism, war, exploitation and slavery, we shouldn’t be allowed to carry on exploiting these people whilst turning them away from a better life. The British empire is nothing to be proud of, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of, all we have to do is recognise the imbalance that is currently present in today’s society due to our ancestor’s choices. We need to re-balance the scales, and we need to do our best to help all other nations of whom we colonised, stole resources from, and exploited to develop and progress in any way they see fit, and this should be at our expense.
But I think we’re pretty far from achieving reparations for the countries that we pillaged in the past. Instead we are upholding a system that is just as oppressive as it ever was. Not a single British person can benefit from the wealth we have exploited, and the labour we continue to exploit in the poorer countries in the world, and then tell immigrants and people of whom contribute to our way of life to “fuck off back to their own country”.
After what Europe and America have done to the poorer countries and their governments in the past 70 years, not a single person seeking refuge or a better life from those countries should be marginalized and systemically demonized by large parts of the population. We have staged countless Coup d'état’s in countries with socialist or communist governments, we have destabilized any government who wouldn’t play ball with American capitalism, we are responsible for the rise in terrorism and deaths of countless innocent people in the countries we bomb and invade, and then when people from these countries risk their lives to get to safety, we show them nothing but hate. I can’t articulate just how angry this makes me. To have your whole way of life being upheld by the exploitation and slavery of others, and if they try to seek a better life they become the enemy.
Britain and the West’s imperialist attitude has been instilled so deeply into society and intertwined with liberalism, that the new forms of oppression are appearing in globally accepted norms. The only way to explain this is that the elite class in each country care more about each other and themselves, than they do about the poor in their respective countries. They all collude to maintain this way of life, making sure that their relative gains to people in their country will remain at a maximum at all times. This is why governments and the ruling classes in poorer countries sell their resources cheap, if they are allowed to stay in power by the western governments, they can be free to exploit their country as much as they want. It also explains why anytime a socialist or communist party comes into power, they are soon overthrown with the help of America and Europe. Less wealth will be going to the important nations if those socialist leaders are sharing it all out with their poor people.
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