Last night I was reading more from Charles Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics and came across this in a section titled The Original Robbery:
“Property is robbery,” proclaimed Proudhon: tracing back the origin of any piece of property through a succession of “legitimate” transfers, we eventually get to the first owner-the one who simply took it, the one who separated it off from the realm of “ours” or “God’s” into the realm of “mine.” Usually this happened by force, as in the seizure of the vast lands of all North America in the last three centuries. This story has played itself out in various forms for millennia all over the world. After all, before Roman times there was no such thing as a deed. Land was like the air and water; it could not be owned. The first owners therefore could not have acquired it legitimately. They must have taken it.
And then this morning I see this:
“The UK ambassador to Argentina has been summoned to explain to officials in Buenos Aires why part of Antarctica has been renamed in honour of the Queen … The southern section was named Queen Elizabeth Land by Foreign Secretary William Hague on Tuesday … Queen Elizabeth Land – which at 169,000 sq miles is almost twice the size of the UK – was previously unnamed, according to the British Foreign Office … The UK first staked claim to the British Antarctic Territory in 1908. However, both Argentina and Chile insist they have prior claims to large areas of the same land.”
I find myself swinging between amused (at the ignorance) and surprised (at the arrogance) of this so called modern human species.
Heck, If I were Antaractica I’d call my northern partner, the Arctic Circle and have it melt a glacier or two to dunk the UK’s head underwater and give it a better sense of property.