The American President’s imaginary qualifications for the lands of other people are very familiar to Africans.
The declaration by President Donald Trump was ironically declaring that he planned to banish all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Middle Eastern Riviera” controlled by the US. It correctly elicited criticism from around the world, including from the West. It supported the genocide of Israel, which had devastated its territory. Many point out that ethnic cleansing violates international law and that the Geneva treaty expressly prohibits the forced displacement of civilians for some reason.
This is all true, but as an African, I was drawn to the slightly different aspects of Trump’s declaration. The claims he makes against having the right to take Gaza should not be isolated from the claims he made in the territory of Greenland and Panama. They all spring from the same roots and were nurtured by the millennium, half of European colonial expansion.
The white fantasies of the rights to the land of others can be traced back to the 1479 Arcacoba Treaty. This establishes the principle that non-European regions can be claimed by European countries, and is tracked within 50 years, within 50 years, and the Treaty of Tordesila and the Saragossa, which has led to the Earth between the Portuguese and Spaniards. They claim to separate. Then, 400 years later, there is a clear line at the infamous Berlin West Africa Conference, with the US and all major European powers present, and legal claims that Europeans can occupy someone who can all Africans take it. has been established.
In Berlin, the doctrine of “effective occupation” essentially requires that they require occupation rights to justify their claims to justify and demonstrate that they can enforce their rules and protect free trade. It was – it was made clear. The precedent of using capitalism’s protection and development to justify colonial occupation today is Trump’s claim that he will reconstruct, internationalize Gaza, and create employment and prosperity for “all people.” is reflected in. Essentially, Trump unconsciously builds his colonial claims on Gaza based on doctrine. That means he can impose American rule.
To be fair, Trump only circulates for months largely from Israel, trying to justify the ongoing occupation under the rubric of converting Gaza to Dubai or Singapore. Based on. Last May, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly released a plan that would maintain control of Israel’s territory and justify it through the implementation of the Marshall Plan. “The Mediterranean Sea” and it becomes part of the “large free trade zone.”
The idea of sacrificing local sovereignty and rights at the altar of the international free trade regime, as Africans can prove, rarely works for Indigenous peoples. The structure, laid out by the Berlin Conference 140 years ago, aimed at enabling free trade, created the fear, the free state of the Congo. This is a true hell that claimed the lives of up to 13 million Congolese people in 23 years. The conference also overcharged and militarized what became known as the African scramble, accompanied by a brutal war of conquest, disease and extinction campaigns. More than a century later, Africans are still influential.
Nevertheless, the memories of the Berlin Conference and the devastation that it was born are fading all over the world. “I’m from Africa, and it’s very interesting to be in Berlin for the Parliament,” said Mamadou Sow, then-ICRC operational coordinator, who addressed the humanitarian parliament in 2017. The joke fell flat. He would later comment on X, he commented, “I realized that the majority of educated Europeans had little knowledge of the history of their colonies.” Just as Palestinians are routinely criticized for the consequences of Israel’s occupation and blockade, people today have an obligation to blame the Africans themselves for the consequences. How often is it treated with a false and modest sense that Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005?
But the lesson is clear. Whether it was by Israel, the US and the Union of States, Gaza recolonization is neither viable nor moral. There is no substitute for local Palestinian sovereignty. African countries are required to use Berlin’s history to speak in one voice.
The views expressed in this article are the author himself, not necessarily reflecting Al Jazira’s editing stance.