December 2000/
January 2001

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

The Modern Dance of Imperialism

Teresa Williams teaches English for social responsibility, black feminism, and international relations in Tokyo for various organizations and colleges in addition to teaching dance healing and gospel workshops. She is compiling a collection of essays on her travel experiences and activism (www.livegem.net/sojournercommunications/)

During my participation on "The Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage: Retracing the Journey of Slavery" in 1998 (a year-long journey that began in western Massachusetts and ended, ultimately, in Capetown, South Africa), I reflected a great deal upon the psychology of early European imperialist thought and human exploitation for economic gain and profit. This pilgrimage experience allowed me and other participants (people of African and European descent, Native Americans, and people of various nationalities) to bravely enter into that space of examining the tenets of slavery and racism and to question the social dynamics that allowed the brutal, sustained genocide of Native Americans and globalized African slave-trafficking to exist as they did for so many years.

"The Middle Passage," Torn Feelings

Such systemic leftovers of imperialism and colonization do not entirely disappear from the psychological mindscape. In fact, they have mutated themselves into varying forms to accommodate and combat present day challenges. I see clear parallels between early imperialism and the modus operandi of today's clandestine imperialism--most notably found in the accelerated mechanics of globalization and the economic imperialism of the so called G-8 nations dominated by European and American economic policies plus Japan as the sole "non-white nation" perceived to be on the same playing field with the others.

But the unique element found in 21st century imperialism is that it is often supported and facilitated by the very people and cultures that were colonized and/or repressed by external forces in the past. This makes it even more complicated to identify, name, and challenge.

The driving force of this modern day imperialist expansion is globalization and capitalism which sets the precedent for the rest of the world to follow. How cultures should think, look, dress, interact, feel, eat, smell, behave, and shop is becoming increasingly universal, dictated via information technology and consumerism that boldly thrusts capitalism sharply into the lives and faces of people around the world. It is as if a blueprint for success has been unleashed around the world for making money, living the good life and "getting what you can get while you can." In other words, being deemed worthy and capable of playing on the same field as the so-called super economic powers. Such a blueprint conveys the illusion of well-being and success with an implication that there is really no other way.

We exist nowadays in a vortex of genome and genetic engineering, DNA dynamics, e-commerce, continued spending for weapons research and shields to protect the United States from any possible threat from "rogue" nations, a continual spiral of poverty and dehumanization in inner cities and the acceleration of an ever-increasing prison industrial complex to warehouse human beings that are deemed undesirable or who have become ensnarled within the system and its warped value system.

Middle Passage Pilgrimage walkers. Photo: Skip Schiel

Abetted by a docile media, people are apt to disregard history altogether and be inclined to not "dwell on" current social conditions. A virulent indifference and detachment from the multidimensional aspects (personal, physical, cultural, political, psychological, spiritual, emotional, sociological, ideological) of human experience prevails, weaving itself into our daily lives, transmuting community-centered value systems into self-centered, indifferent ones that thrive on triviality and consumption. There is something painfully disturbing about the direction America is headed with its dazzling modern wizardry of compact and efficient means for dealing with the marginalized who "get in the way" of progress in the 21st century.

During the African Slave Trade, the globalization of that period was based on the international marketing and trafficking of African men, women, and children--human beings. The human beings who conducted this trade had to detach from their humanness sufficiently to deny the humanness of the enslaved Africans if they meant to satisfy their desire for material and mineral wealth. This dehumanization process was necessary to carry on the business of the day, profiting from commerce in Africans. Over time, those in control trained and socialized the enslaved to carry out the task of further inflicting oppressive behavior towards each other. Such internalized oppression was deemed important so the enslaved would possess no sense of self-worth or dignity nor any respect for another enslaved person. As a result, the cycle of oppression operated on two levels: from the oppressor to the oppressed and from the oppressed to the oppressed.

In the midst of the strategic simultaneous genocide of Native American men, women and children (humans) throughout the American hemisphere, the human trafficking of enslaved Africans eas carried on for centuries--with millions having died in the Middle Passage prior to reaching American soil.

We ask: how could such a social system be deemed acceptable around the world for so long--the daily shiploads of fresh saltwater Africans (the "lucky ones," those who survived the unspeakable Middle Passage over the Atlantic), the auction blocks in cities and towns, gross physical and sexual exploitation, the neglect, the day-to- day violence and atrocities used to break the Africans' defiant and rebellious spirit, the socially sanctioned raping and forced breeding of enslaved women and girls, the brutal murders, the horse whippings, the branding irons used on human flesh, the public lynchings for leisure and punishment, the sale and purchase of human beings?

I ponder this question, curious what was deemed socially acceptable and important and what was not in the midst of industrialization and colonial expansion. People under early oppression were not allowed to name their oppression or to resist their conditions. It is this naming process which is crucial in identifying the structural mechanisms which oppress people today--those structures which cannot easily be identified but are experienced on a daily level and which are internalized by both oppressors and oppressed.

Recently, I was invited to speak at a community center in Yokohama, Japan on the African-American experience and Black Feminism. I tried to outline significant chapters of our presence in America. I showed photos of Tom Feelings' "Middle Passage" around the room during the segment on the African slave trade and asked participants to discuss them and share their impressions. One Japanese woman spoke out in great shock at witnessing such sights. She was enraged because she thought she had already understood--in words--the magnitude of the African-American presence in America. But she said she never imagined these Africans experiencing anything so shockingly inhumane. She wept as she continued to articulate her rage about not learning the facts in school and how important it was for us to examine the suffering and atrocities of history.

Through this lecture, it was my intention to assist my listeners to confront history as a vehicle for social healing and understanding--particularly Japanese historical atrocities of WWII. It is the conspiracy of silence and indifference that works to keep people paralyzed from critically examining the past and making linkages with the present day. That Japanese woman and many others were able to recognize the Middle Passage and slavery while understanding that this took place in the midst of genocidal warfare against Native Americans.

By examining the context of violence in colonial America and revisiting what it must have been like, from the perspective of the oppressed, we were able to reconstruct history in a way that gave a human face (and a culture) to those who had been deemed faceless, voiceless, and dehumanized by the dominant culture.

As we continue evolving towards this next millennium, it is imperative that we make every effort to engage in the recovery of ourselves: culturally, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, intuitively, and physically. Living within the framework and context of an imperialist society (regardless of which country) requires us to develop our own blueprint which affirms our humanity and encourages a critical consciousness and literacy about understanding what is going on around us.

This is not going to be constructed for us by the dominant society. Indeed, that society seeks to perpetuate the cycle of dehumanization and modern slavery via entrenched capitalism, technological exploitation, and the cultural repression of identity. We need to embrace the lessons of history and acknowledge the struggles of our predecessors and ancestors by extending their legacy and stories to the present day whilst assisting others in other cultural contexts to also name, identify, comprehend, and challenge the vestiges of global oppression.

The African-American agenda for the 21st century should be about addressing all forms of human oppression, not only in the United States but in other regions of the world. We have a right to transform and make human the American and global agenda and to be the first to name, identify, and challenge modern slavery--in any form and any cultural context.

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