The ethnic cleansing cost of Thanksgiving 5/12/11
Sirs,
Having read Mr Campbell’s letter about Thanksgiving and how it was an advert for private property I feel a couple of things have to be pointed out.
When the pilgrims landed in America it was not an empty land. It had over 10 million native peoples living there; over 420 separate Indian tribes once populated the area that is now North America. They lived as they had lived for thousands of years, hunting, and farming, taking only what was necessary. They lived communally and lived in harmony with the land. They had no need or understanding of money or private property.
Then the pilgrims arrived and the ethnic cleansing began. As the settlers grew greedier and greedier the Native Americans were pushed further and further off their lands. They were massacred, disease ripped through them.
The buffalo which had sustained the Native Americans since time immemorial was slaughtered for its fur, the meat left to rot. By 1900 only 230,000 Native Americans survived. Today they can found living on reservations, where suicide and alcoholism are rife.
The settlers came, they saw, they conquered. A way of life, a culture, a whole race was nearly wiped out. Coming from an island where the governments of Scotland and Britain attempted the very same thing surely Mr Campbell has some empathy with the Native Americans?
Mr Campbell sees Thanksgiving as a day to be celebrated, he also manages to try and show that the communal living highlights the “evils of socialism.”
As the cheerleader for capitalism in the Hebrides I think Mr Campbell should take time to ponder the following Native American saying:
Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
Michael A MacLeod
Castlebay
Isle of Barra
Letters require the writer’s full name and full address for publication. Please include a phone number for verification.