I Hereby Claim This Land
As a teacher, I had to teach my intermediate students every year about the European "discoverers" and how they claimed huge tracts of land for their nation and its sovereign by ramming a flagstaff into the ground. The native-born inhabitants may have been standing right there, but that never daunted those avaricious explorers.
This afternoon I shall be working again with a student in an intermediate grade, a young lady whom I tutor. She is currently being taught about the French settling of their colony, New France. Champlain et al are making their way into her awareness of history through the euro-centric pages of her history text, and even being portrayed as rather heroic as they began their plunder of the new land's resources, and forcibly "introduce" the natives to their god, to save their souls. What the text neglects to mention is that those heroic europeans stole from the natives - their land, their homes, their religion, their pride - all to establish themselves as overlords in a new country.
Today I think I shall deviate a little from the direction the teacher and text want her mind to be herded along, all in the hopes of her seeing the action of "claiming" land in a different light. I think I'll take her first to the Antarctic where massive stretches of terrain lie unclaimed, and ask her why she thinks that is. We'll talk about the inhospitable climate and the lack of attainable resources, and I'll ask her why she thinks no-one wants to bring their god to those wind-swept stretches, for the glory of his name. Then I shall introduce her to the principality of Sealand, and its royal family.
Prince Roy has ruled his domain for 30 years, and weathered the exchange of fire with Britain in 1968 and an attempted invasion by Dutch marauders led by a German in '78. All this over a previous WWII military base, Roughs Tower, which was built to house troops and artillery designed to shoot down German aircraft and ballistic missiles.
It was built slightly north of the Thames River, approximately 7 miles from the coast. Britain's claim of territorial waters extends only 3 miles from its coast, so the way was clear for Roy Bates to stake his claim. After the war, when the military pulled down the other bases along the east coast of England, for some reason, they left Roughs Tower standing. Damned decent of the Brits to provide housing for the future royal family, what?
Through the years, Prince Roy has proclaimed a constitution, developed an anthem and flag, and issued stamps as well as gold and silver coins for his country, the smallest recognized nation on the globe.
Bates made his claim for king and country all right, but he was the king and both his reign and his kingdom existed in his mind only, when he declared the land to be his. It sort of all says "silly buggers" to me when I read about Champlain and the others in my student's text, and remember Roy Bates.
Now that the Prince is old and ailing, he is willing to cede his claim to the country. Since England is the closest country to Sealand, it is easy to imagine it slipping back under their control again. That particular "royal family" will become history and be forgotten, as have so many others. The bloody disputes over territory claimed by opposing factions will continue as it has ever since humankind first walked upright. Natives will occupy various locations in Canada, as they have recently done in Caledonia, Ontario and declare the land to be theirs, unfairly taken from them by europeans. Israel and its Arab neighbours will continue to lob explosives back and forth as they have for far too long now. Human blood will continue to stain the soil everywhere that people fight over who has the right to ownership, and students will continue to be taught the history of those tracts as written by the latest winning side. It will all come to naught, until we all obliterate each other in a final dispute or we realize that the fighting needs to stop. Through it all the earth will continue to marshall itself through the endless cycle of seasons, heedless of the arrogant lifeforms who think they can own it. They may own the earth for a time, but earth simply sifts itself through your fingers and blows away unless you anchor it with love.
I wonder when I'll ever find myself reading a history text that teaches that to the students assigned to read it.
This afternoon I shall be working again with a student in an intermediate grade, a young lady whom I tutor. She is currently being taught about the French settling of their colony, New France. Champlain et al are making their way into her awareness of history through the euro-centric pages of her history text, and even being portrayed as rather heroic as they began their plunder of the new land's resources, and forcibly "introduce" the natives to their god, to save their souls. What the text neglects to mention is that those heroic europeans stole from the natives - their land, their homes, their religion, their pride - all to establish themselves as overlords in a new country.
Today I think I shall deviate a little from the direction the teacher and text want her mind to be herded along, all in the hopes of her seeing the action of "claiming" land in a different light. I think I'll take her first to the Antarctic where massive stretches of terrain lie unclaimed, and ask her why she thinks that is. We'll talk about the inhospitable climate and the lack of attainable resources, and I'll ask her why she thinks no-one wants to bring their god to those wind-swept stretches, for the glory of his name. Then I shall introduce her to the principality of Sealand, and its royal family.
Prince Roy has ruled his domain for 30 years, and weathered the exchange of fire with Britain in 1968 and an attempted invasion by Dutch marauders led by a German in '78. All this over a previous WWII military base, Roughs Tower, which was built to house troops and artillery designed to shoot down German aircraft and ballistic missiles.
It was built slightly north of the Thames River, approximately 7 miles from the coast. Britain's claim of territorial waters extends only 3 miles from its coast, so the way was clear for Roy Bates to stake his claim. After the war, when the military pulled down the other bases along the east coast of England, for some reason, they left Roughs Tower standing. Damned decent of the Brits to provide housing for the future royal family, what?
Through the years, Prince Roy has proclaimed a constitution, developed an anthem and flag, and issued stamps as well as gold and silver coins for his country, the smallest recognized nation on the globe.
Bates made his claim for king and country all right, but he was the king and both his reign and his kingdom existed in his mind only, when he declared the land to be his. It sort of all says "silly buggers" to me when I read about Champlain and the others in my student's text, and remember Roy Bates.
Now that the Prince is old and ailing, he is willing to cede his claim to the country. Since England is the closest country to Sealand, it is easy to imagine it slipping back under their control again. That particular "royal family" will become history and be forgotten, as have so many others. The bloody disputes over territory claimed by opposing factions will continue as it has ever since humankind first walked upright. Natives will occupy various locations in Canada, as they have recently done in Caledonia, Ontario and declare the land to be theirs, unfairly taken from them by europeans. Israel and its Arab neighbours will continue to lob explosives back and forth as they have for far too long now. Human blood will continue to stain the soil everywhere that people fight over who has the right to ownership, and students will continue to be taught the history of those tracts as written by the latest winning side. It will all come to naught, until we all obliterate each other in a final dispute or we realize that the fighting needs to stop. Through it all the earth will continue to marshall itself through the endless cycle of seasons, heedless of the arrogant lifeforms who think they can own it. They may own the earth for a time, but earth simply sifts itself through your fingers and blows away unless you anchor it with love.
I wonder when I'll ever find myself reading a history text that teaches that to the students assigned to read it.
1 Comments:
You could find yourself reading the right history book one day ... unfortunately, you'd have to write it yourself. Or maybe, that's fortunately.
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