The colonies of North America were established mainly by men seeking to make fortunes for themselves and for their country. They were also seeking to spread the word of civilization and God to all those who were so obviously lost. Sound familiar to anyone?
The so-called American Dream of making good is merely an extension of the old explorers motivation to find new worlds to plunder and secure one's fortune. In a continent where settlement and expansion were dictated by men's desire for money, is it any wonder that North America's values are still dictated by consumerism?
Learn to read between the lines of your history textbooks and you'll see that economic forces drove expansion and exploration on the part of the European nations. From India to North America, it was all about taking what you wanted and ensuring the least amount of interference from the locals.
The end result was the destruction of some cultures, sucking the core out of others, and a dominant culture that existed for the pursuit of individual fortunes. As the colonial powers withdrew, from the mid-twentieth century mark onward, they left behind arbitrarily defined borders based on where their territories had existed, ignorant of past tribal and cultural differences.
The cost of this carelessness and of their attempts to obliterate unique cultural identities is still being paid today. Whether in the form of genocides like those of Biafra and Rwanda, the need for people to reclaim their identities out of the mists of time, or even the feelings of spiritual angst experienced by some people in the West; all are legacies of the old expansionist, colonial mindset.
There are no easy solutions to any of these problems. You can't solve generations of racial and ethnic hatreds, give people back their languages and observances that have been lost, or fill an emptiness in people's lives overnight. There are no twelve-step programs for this type of recovery.
The Indian author Ashok Banker uses the term “cultural archaeologist” to describe what he's attempting to do by retelling the old stories of India for a modern audience. He digs into the past and uncovers the living relics buried alive by occupying cultures that tried to superimpose themselves over what had existed for thousands of years.
Unfortunately it is far easier to destroy than rebuild. It is made even more difficult because of all the false trails and misleading information that is now being generated by those wishing to cash in on people's quest for identities. Nobody seems to want to know about where they came from because it's nowhere near as exotic as learning the secrets of the ten shamanist chants to enlightenment or how to invoke 25 angels and 15 ascendant masters through your navel.
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