Hitchens on genocide

Mina Kumar wejazzjune at hotmail.com
Fri Dec 7 00:03:15 PST 2001



>
>This is only a micro-illustration of the absurdity of founding a
>claim of right or justice on the idea of the indigenous.... <snip>


>The Sioux should be able to claim
>the same rights and titles as any other citizen, and should be
>compensated for past injury. That goes without saying. But the
>anti-Columbus movement is bored by concepts of this kind, preferring
>to flagellate about original sin and therefore, inevitably, to brood
>about the illusory counterpart to that exploded concept-the Garden of
>Eden.

I think the comment about rights-as-human rather than rights-as-indigenous is a fine point. However, I think he's missing the point. The fasting isn't really about crying over what happened to Sioux ancestors, it's to draw attention to the condition of the Sioux today. If the Sioux were more powerful than white people in the US, they too would have the equanimous attitudes the British have towards the Romans.

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