This Land Is Our Land

by Suketu Mehta

  “The Case for Colonialism”: Bruce Gilley, “The Case for Colonialism.” Third World Quarterly (2017). http://www.web.pdx.edu/~gilleyb/2_The%20case%20for%20colonialism_at2Oct2017.pdf.

  “balanced reappraisal of the colonial past”: Nigel Biggar, “Don’t Feel Guilty About Our Colonial History.” Times (November 30, 2017). https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/don-t-feel-guilty-about-our-colonial-history-ghvstdhmj.

  59 percent of Britons surveyed in 2014: Will Dahlgreen, “The British Empire Is ‘Something to Be Proud Of.’” YouGov (poll conducted July 24–25, 2014). https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2014/07/26/britain-proud-its-empire.

  “The prime minister believed that Indians were the next worst people”: Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), p. 286.

  “I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas”: National Churchill Museum, “Churchill’s 1919 War Office Memorandum” (written May 12, 1919). https://www.nationalchurchillmuseum.org/churchills-1919-war-office-memorandum.html.

  “Churchill literally created the kingdom of Jordan”: Ben Quinn, “How Churchill Helped to Shape the Middle East We Know Today.” Guardian (April 23, 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/22/winston-churchill-imperial-war-museum-middle-east-legacy.

  In all, 40 percent of all the national borders in the entire world today: For a detailed breakdown of the role colonial powers such as Britain and France played in the creation of arbitrary national borders, refer to Alberto Alesina, William Easterly, and Janina Matuszeski, “Artificial States.” Journal of the European Economic Association 9, no. 2 (April 2011), pp. 246–277. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25836066.

  The authors of a 2015 study in the American Economic Review: Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou, “The Long-Run Effects of the Scramble for Africa.” American Economic Review 106, no. 7 (November 2011), pp. 1802–1848.

  European countries began importing huge numbers of migrants: Paul Fogarty, “Contract Workers in World War One.” British Library (January 29, 2014). https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/contract-workers-in-world-war-one.

  In 1951, there were around 157,000 immigrants: David Coleman, Paul Compton, and John Salt, “Demography of Migrant Populations: The Case of the United Kingdom.” In Werner Haug, Paul Compton, and Youssef Courbage, eds., The Demographic Characteristics of Immigrant Populations (Council of Europe Publishing, 2002), p. 504.

  Citizens though the North Africans may have been: For context on the decolonization of Algeria, see Phillip C. Naylor, France and Algeria: A History of Decolonization and Transformation (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000).

  When France left Algeria in 1962, 85 percent of the population was illiterate: UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, “Literacy, Training and Employment for Women, Algeria” (last updated November 24, 2015). http://uil.unesco.org/case-study/effective-practices-database-litbase-0/literacy-training-and-employment-women-algeria.

  A million Haitians have migrated to the United States: Jennifer Schulz and Jeanne Batalova, “Haitian Immigrants in the United States.” Migration Information Source (August 2, 2017). https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/haitian-immigrants-united-states.

  In March 2017, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas: Enrique Krauze, “Will Mexico Get Half of Its Territory Back?” New York Times (April 6, 2017). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/opinion/will-mexico-get-half-of-its-territory-back.html.

  The film Dunkirk, for example: John Broich, “What’s Fact and What’s Fiction in Dunkirk.” Slate (July 20, 2017). https://slate.com/culture/2017/07/whats-fact-and-whats-fiction-in-dunkirk.html.

  Altogether, 2.5 million Indian soldiers: Yasmin Khan, “Has India’s Contribution to WW2 Been Ignored?” BBC News (June 17, 2015). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33105898.

  When Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492: Numbers for indigenous people living in the Americas at the dawn of the colonial age are the subject of a rich historiography. The numbers of 100 million and 3.5 million are drawn from a combination of Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (New York: Penguin, 2002), pp. 39–40; and David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. x.

  The London School of Economics anthropologist Jason Hickel observes: Jason Hickel, “Enough of Aid—Let’s Talk Reparations.” Guardian (November 27, 2015). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/nov/27/enough-of-aid-lets-talk-reparations.

  “Slave-owning planters, and merchants who dealt in slaves”: Robin Blackburn, “Enslavement and Industrialisation.” BBC History (February 17, 2011). http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/industrialisation_article_01.shtml. See also Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776–1848 (London: Verso, 1988).

  Meanwhile, in Congo, Belgium’s King Leopold: Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (London: Pan, 2002), pp. 225–234.

  6. THE NEW COLONIALISM

  The gas cloud killed more than twenty thousand people: Neeraj Santoshi, “Bhopal Disaster: So, How Many Died? 32 Years on, No One Sure.” Hindustan Times (December 3, 2016). https://www.hindustantimes.com/bhopal/bhopal-disaster-so-how-many-died-32-years-on-no-one-sure/story-luLN0QaTxHlu05RTGNHOoI.html.

  United States refused to extradite Carbide’s president: Douglas Martin, “Warren Anderson, 92, Dies; Faced India Plant Disaster.” New York Times (October 30, 2014). https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/business/w-m-anderson-92-dies-led-union-carbide-in-80s-.html.

  Today’s multinationals are bigger than entire countries: Fernando Belinchón, “25 Giant Companies That Are Bigger Than Entire Countries.” Business Insider España (July 25, 2018). https://www.businessinsider.com/25-giant-companies-that-earn-more-than-entire-countries-2018-7.

  A tenth of all the world’s GDP is hidden: Annette Alstadsæter, Niels Johannesen, and Gabriel Zucman, “Who Owns the Wealth in Tax Havens? Macro Evidence and Implications for Global Inequality.” National Bureau of Economic Research (September 2017). https://www.nber.org/papers/w23805.

  The City of London effectively operates as the biggest tax haven: Nicholas Shaxson, “The Tax Haven in the Heart of Britain.” New Statesman (February 24, 2011). https://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporation-city.

  curious voting system, with some nine thousand votes: Aiden James, “The Place Where Businesses and Their Office Workers Vote.” BBC News (March 21, 2017). https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39283177.

  “When the British Empire crumbled”: Nicholas Shaxson, “A Tale of Two Londons.” Vanity Fair (April 2013). https://www.vanityfair.com/style/society/2013/04/mysterious-residents-one-hyde-park-london.

  Developing countries lose three times as much to tax havens: Max Bearak, “How Global Tax Evasion Keeps Poor Countries Poor.” Washington Post (April 8, 2016). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/08/how-global-tax-evasion-keeps-poor-countries-poor/.

  Money being smuggled out of sub-Saharan Africa: Dev Kar and Guttorm Schielderup, “Financial Flows and Tax Havens: Combining to Limit the Lives of Billions of People.” Global Financial Integrity (December 2015), p. xv. https://www.gfintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Financial_Flows-final.pdf.

  In 2016, a full 40 percent of the profits of global multinationals: Thomas R. Tørsløv, Ludvig S. Wier, and Gabriel Zucman, “The Missing Profits of Nations.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 24701 (issued June 2018, revised August 2018), p. 3. https://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/TWZ2018.pdf.

  Of the world’s GDP, 11.5 percent ($8.7 trillion) is being held in overseas tax havens: Gabriel Zucman, “How Corporations and the Wealthy Avoid Taxes (and How to Stop Them).” New York Times (November 10, 2017). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/opinion/gabriel-zucman-paradise-papers-tax-evasion.html.

  Trillions of dollars a year i
n net resource transfers: All information in these two paragraphs drawn from Matthew Salomon and Joseph Spanjers, “Illicit Financial Flows to and from Developing Countries: 2005–2014.” Global Financial Integrity (May 1, 2017), pp. xi–xv. https://www.gfintegrity.org/report/illicit-financial-flows-to-and-from-developing-countries-2005-2014/.

  “If we add theft through trade in services to the mix”: Jason Hickel, “Aid in Reverse: How Poor Countries Develop Rich Countries.” Guardian (January 14, 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/14/aid-in-reverse-how-poor-countries-develop-rich-countries.

  Mexico lost $872 billion in illicit financial outflows: Dev Kar, “Mexico: Illicit Financial Flows, Macroeconomic Imbalances, and the Underground Economy.” Global Financial Integrity (January 30, 2012). https://www.gfintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/gfi_mexico_report_english-web.pdf.

  16 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States: Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “More Mexicans Leaving Than Coming to the U.S.” Pew Research Center (November 19, 2015). http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexicans-leaving-than-coming-to-the-u-s/.

  “Citizenship in Western democracies”: Joseph H. Carens, The Ethics of Immigration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 226.

  “How much money can you ever hope to make in your lifetime?”: Michael Clemens, “Why Today’s Migration Crisis Is an Issue of Global Economic Inequality.” Ford Foundation (July 29, 2016). https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/why-today-s-migration-crisis-is-an-issue-of-global-economic-inequality/.

  According to the economist Angus Maddison: Jason Hickel, “Global Inequality May Be Much Worse Than We Think.” Guardian (April 8, 2016). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/apr/08/global-inequality-may-be-much-worse-than-we-think. Figures taken from Jutta Bolt, Robert Inklaar, Herman de Jong, and Jan Luiten van Zanden, “Rebasing ‘Maddison’: New Income Comparisons and the Shape of Long-Run Economic Development.” Maddison Project Database (2018). https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2018.

  global inequality among the world’s individuals has dipped since 2000: Jutta Bolt, Marcel P. Timmer, and Jan Luiten van Zanden, “GDP Per Capita Since 1820.” In Jan Luiten van Zanden, Joerg Baten, Marco Mira d’Ercole, Auke Rijpma, and Marcel P. Timmer, eds., How Was Life? Global Well-Being Since 1820 (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2014), pp. 57–73. https://www.oecd.org/statistics/How-was-life.pdf.

  “Most people believe that inequality is rising”: Hamilton Nolan, “Global Inequality Explained by Branko Milanovic.” Gawker (June 3, 2016). https://gawker.com/global-inequality-explained-by-branko-milanovic-1780110436.

  Jeremy Corbyn, in a December 2017 speech: Jeremy Corbyn, “Speech at United Nations Geneva Headquarters” (December 8, 2017). https://labour.org.uk/press/jeremy-corbyn-speech-at-the-united-nations-geneva/.

  “he jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France”: Mathieu Bonkoungou, “Burkina Faso Salutes ‘Africa’s Che.’” Reuters (October 17, 2007). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-burkina-sankara-idUSL1757771220071017.

  “had become the strongest ally to France and the US in the region”: Thomas Fessy, “How Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaore Sparked His Own Downfall.” BBC News (October 31, 2014). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29858965.

  in the UN Human Development Index: United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Index and Its Components” (2017). http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/HDI.

  1.5 million Burkinabe have moved to the Ivory Coast: “Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso: A Measured Reconciliation.” Stratfor Worldview (August 12, 2016). https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/ivory-coast-and-burkina-faso-measured-reconciliation.

  7. WAR

  United Fruit Corporation, which … owned 42 percent of all the land: Opoku Agyeman, Power, Powerlessness, and Globalization: Contemporary Politics in the Global South (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014), p. 45.

  “Guatemala was chosen as the site”: Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, “Big Fruit.” New York Times (March 2, 2008). https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/books/review/Kurtz-Phelan-t.html.

  United Fruit complained to Truman about the reform bill: More background on the CIA’s intervention in Guatemala is drawn from Piero Gleijeses, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 223–266.

  More than 200,000 Guatemalans died over the next four decades: Elisabeth Malkin, “An Apology for a Guatemalan Coup, 57 Years Later.” New York Times (October 20, 2011). https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/americas/an-apology-for-a-guatemalan-coup-57-years-later.html.

  The biggest source of Guatemalan foreign income: Blake Nelson, “Guatemalans Are Sending a Record Amount of Money Home During Trump’s Presidency. Will Their Investment Pay Off?” PRI’s The World (December 29, 2017). https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-12-29/guatemalans-are-sending-record-amount-money-home-during-trump-s-presidency-will.

  remittances from the 1.5 million Guatemalans: James Smith, “Guatemala: Economic Migrants Replace Political Refugees.” Migration Policy Institute (April 1, 2006). https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/guatemala-economic-migrants-replace-political-refugees.

  “Many Americans would prefer to forget that chapter”: Raymond Bonner, “America’s Role in El Salvador’s Deterioration.” Atlantic (January 20, 2018). https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/01/trump-and-el-salvador/550955/.

  Thus was MS-13 born: Dara Lind, “MS-13, Explained.” Vox (May 21, 2018). https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/26/16955936/ms-13-trump-immigrants-crime.

  As late as 2007, Chiquita Brands: Matt Apuzzo, “Chiquita to Pay $25M Fine in Terror Case.” Associated Press (March 15, 2007). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031500354.html.

  Moro Muslim conflict in the Philippines: Ralph Jennings, “Why There’s No End in Sight to Violence by Multiple Terrorist Groups in the Philippines.” Forbes (May 30, 2017). https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2017/05/30/violent-unrest-in-the-philippines/#3fd807ed3605.

  Ituri conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Alex McBride Wilson, “Violence Returns to DR Congo’s Ituri Province.” Al Jazeera (April 11, 2018). https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/violence-returns-dr-congo-ituri-province-180410102912520.html.

  The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar: Engy Abdelkader, “The History of the Persecution of Myanmar’s Rohingya.” Conversation (September 20, 2017). https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-the-persecution-of-myanmars-rohingya-84040.

  exacerbated by rumors spread through Facebook: Paul Mozur, “A Genocide Incited on Facebook, with Posts from Myanmar’s Military.” New York Times (October 15, 2018). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html.

  In 2014, Mexican authorities seized 15,397 firearms, ranging from: “Mexico Data Source: Firearms Tracing System Data (January 1, 2012–December 31, 2017).” Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (as of March 9, 2018). https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/tracedatamexicocy1217finalpdf/download.

  In the Caribbean, 64 percent of the guns coming in are American: “Caribbean Data Source: Firearms Tracing System Data (January 1, 2017–December 31, 2017).” Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (as of March 9, 2018). https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/docs/undefined/tracedatacaribbeancy17finalpdf/download.

  All this came out in the open in 2011: Todd Schwarzschild and Drew Griffin, “ATF Loses Track of 1,400 Guns in Criticized Probe.” CNN (July 12, 2011). http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/12/atf.guns/index.html.

  Half of all the civilian guns in the world: Paul Specht, “Does America Own 42 Percent of the World’s Guns?” Politifact (March 5, 2018). https://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/statements/2018/mar/0
5/pricey-harrison/does-america-have-42-percent-worlds-guns/.

  Every day, around a thousand migrants are intercepted: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “Southwest Border Migration FY2018 Statistics” (last modified November 9, 2018). https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration/fy-2018.

  Every day, some seven hundred guns travel unhindered over the border: Kate Linthicum, “There Is Only One Gun Store in All of Mexico. So Why Is Gun Violence Soaring?” Los Angeles Times (May 24, 2018). https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-guns-20180524-story.html. Further context and statistics on firearms crossing the U.S.-Mexico border from Topher McDougal, David A. Shirk, Robert Muggah, and John H. Patterson, “The Way of the Gun: Estimating Firearms Traffic Across the U.S.-Mexico Border.” Trans-Border Institute, Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies, and the Igarapé Institute (March 2013). https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Paper_The_Way_of_the_Gun_web2.pdf.

  Between 2000 and 2004 alone, the United States dumped twenty thousand criminals: Ana Arana, “How the Street Gangs Took Central America.” Foreign Affairs (May 2005). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/central-america-caribbean/2005-05-01/how-street-gangs-took-central-america.

  The vote was 153 countries in favor: United Nations General Assembly, 67th Plenary Meeting (December 6, 2006). http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/61/PV.67.

  “The United States was the lone dissenter”: Rachel Stohl and Doug Tuttle, “The Small Arms Trade in Latin America.” NACLA Report on the Americas 41, no. 2 (2008), pp. 14–20.

  One out of ten people born in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala: D’Vera Cohen, Jeffrey S. Passel, and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera, “Rise in U.S. Immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras Outpaces Growth from Elsewhere.” Pew Research Center (December 7, 2017). http://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/12/07/rise-in-u-s-immigrants-from-el-salvador-guatemala-and-honduras-outpaces-growth-from-elsewhere/.