COSA NOSTRA

United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia. These are the countries of the G8. All of them have been colonial powers. All of them are responsible for massive crimes against humanity, from torture to war crimes to genocide. Their history (our history) has been written with the blood of their victims (our victims), slaughtered on the altar of imperialism. All of them have used complaisant writers, historians and intellectuals to justify their unspeakable crimes and hide them behind the carpet of ‘civilization’.

The much elegant and sophisticated Europe is a continent floating on the blood of its victims. Probably the most violent, cruel and irrational place on earth, our continent has been the theatre of any kind of war, violence and insanity for centuries. We mastered the art of killing and destruction so well to export it all over the world.

From the Roman Empire to the Christian Crusades, from the conquest (read: genocide) of the “new world” to the colonization of much of the globe: this is Europe at its best. We imposed to the rest of the world our artificial construction, the State, responsible for much bloodshed at home. As a metastasis, the cancer propagated everywhere with the result that now it’s the whole world that’s floating on the blood of innocent people.

Slavery, racism, intolerance, persecutions, World War I and World War II, genocide, oppression, poverty… just a short list of our civilization’s products. All this (and much, much more) for the insatiable greed of our elites.

“They… brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features… They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… They would make fine servants… With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.” (1)

These are the words of the Western civilization first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus. A hero much celebrated today. And this is what the G8 represents and stands for.

“The G8 is a completely illegitimate and unaccountable body of global governance; its governments and corporations are historically responsible for most of the problems of developing countries, and remain so today” say Nicola Bullard, of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, the respected international non-government policy research and advocacy organisation. “Lobbying the G8 contradicts the very clear call made by hundreds of social movements, NGOs and trade unions from the South and the North at this year’s World Social Forum to mobilise protests against the G8 summit.” (2)

That’s why “Make Poverty History” is just an empty slogan, a slogan used by the power to hide its own agenda and hijacking genuine dissent. In this regard, it’s not different from “War on Terror”, “Support Our Troops”, “War on Drugs” and many others.

That’s why the G8 has to be regarded as a criminal organization, of the kind of Cosa Nostra.

And that’s why the loud music of these days should not distract us from thinking of what these eight moral dwarfs in Scotland stand for. They must feel our contempt for their homicidal policies and we must hold them accountable for their massive crimes against humanity in Africa, in Afghanistan, in Iraq and anywhere else.

And when they and their servants in the media will hide behind the mask of civilization, let’s reply what Gandhi answered when he was asked what he thought about Western civilization:

“I think it would be a good idea”.

Notes

1) from "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn
2) from "Murky world of Make Poverty History uncovered" by Stuart Hodkinson