The Inconvenient Memory of Wounded Kee

It has always struck me that one of the worst acts of genocide (if you can measure the quality of genocide) committed by human beings on other human beings has been committed by the people of European descent in North America upon the native people. It has been a long and inglorious history has America sought to fulfill what it described as its manifest destiny by murdering those who lived on the land for the use of the land.

The Great Land Grab

In the past ten years two hundred million hectares of land has been bought or leased in undeveloped countries. In most cases the land has been bought by large corporations to farm, or by mining companies to exploit for its resources or by governments for their own reasons. Buying and selling land is a feature of the developed world. Before the developed world was developed, our own communities made land inalienable. The concept of buying or selling land thousands of years ago would have been odd to the people who lived on it, just like to concept of owning wild beast and birds would have been odd; the land belonged to no one and to everyone.