“What Can We Do as Allies?”
It wasn’t until Africans attended a Healing from War and Genocide Workshop, that I led in Poland, that I started scanning memories of what I had heard about Africa when I was growing up. I had done considerable (but not enough) discharging on my racism, but I had not discharged on my oppressor recordings and ignorance about Africa.
I did not remember learning anything about sub-Saharan Africa in all my schooling, from elementary school through college.
I did recall seeing a movie—in a theater, not at school—about the Kenyan independence struggle against British colonialism. I searched the web and found the movie, Simba, streaming on Netflix. I watched it. It was indeed the movie that I had seen in high school. The movie was made in England and released in the United States in 1956. I was fifteen years old when I first saw it. It depicted the Mau Mau as vicious murderers but did not mention the theft of their land under colonialism and that the violence was a war for independence between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army and the British authorities that eventually led to Kenya winning its independence in 1963.
I continued counseling about the movie and other memories and started reading and discharging about the history of sub-Saharan Africa.
A LITTLE HISTORY
All of us are affected by the history of our ancestors and our country. No one escapes. Our culture gets passed on to us in many ways. Some of it we are aware of and some we are not. Along with the positive parts of our culture are the values, beliefs, and distress recordings that hinder our efforts to create a world where all humans flourish.
The countries that perpetuated colonialism and imperialism justified them by the belief that white Christian culture, methods of government, and economic systems are superior to those of other peoples. It was the “white man’s burden,” in the words of the poet Rudyard Kipling, to impose British forms of government on other peoples.
John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher, political economist, and member of Parliament, gave a theoretical justification for colonialism and imperialism in his 1859 book On Liberty. He wrote, “Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end.” Mill has been called the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century.
As late as 1948, The United Nations charter referred to Europe’s colonies as “non-self-governing territories” and outlined the “progressive development” of their “peoples and their varying stages of advancement.”
HOW OUR HISTORY AFFECTS US
Those of us who grew up in countries with a colonialist, imperialistic, or genocidal history have all been affected by the lies that were created to justify these brutal practices. These lies are imbedded in our patriotic songs, history books, novels, and children’s books. Some countries have destroyed or hidden the records of their colonial past. Very few countries teach us as young people about their crimes. Instead, we grow up with messages of patriotism, nationalism, and that our nation and culture are superior to others.
WHAT WE CAN DO AS ALLIES
The RC Unified Goal, adopted in 2022, states “… that we support and follow the leadership of Native and Indigenous people and Global Majority people, and other oppressed groups.…”
We may intellectually understand, and honestly believe, that no culture is superior to any other culture. But intellectual understanding is not enough. It can delude us into thinking that we don’t have to discharge on how we have been conditioned to act in ways that are disrespectful of the thinking of people from other cultures. Distress patterns that are most likely to interfere with our ability to “support and follow the leadership” of others might be labeled as superiority patterns, domination patterns, or taking-up-space patterns. We are often unaware of these patterns.
POSSIBLE WAYS TO MOVE FORWARD
We can do the following:
- Learn about the history of our countries regarding colonialism and imperialism, and discharge on the action we would like to take.
- Discharge on how we have been conditioned to believe that our thinking, our approaches, and our solutions are superior to others.
- In sessions, listen to the patriotic songs we heard growing up and discharge on the messages we received.
- When we are in groups, try and notice when superiority patterns, domination patterns, or taking-up-space patterns are operating, and interrupt them. Do it gently and thoughtfully, but interrupt them.
- Discharge on what our parents’ attitudes were about our countries and their histories.
- Explore in session how the early defeats and struggles we experienced in infancy and childhood might affect our willingness to accept the belief that people of our group/culture/nation are superior to others.
The following are some resources for learning more about the effect of colonialism, imperialism, and genocide on Indigenous people and Global Majority people:
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
• The 1619 Project, which focuses on the influence of slavery on U.S. history
• The Doctrine of Discovery: Unmasking the Domination Code (streaming on <www.vimeo.com/ondemand/dominationcode>)
• Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa, by Adam Hochschild
Santa Barbara, California, USA
(Present Time 213, October 2023)