> previous, related posts: New Canaan, Connecticut
Old Canaan New Canaan, IBM and the Holocaust For the indigenous people who lived there, Canaan was a place of genocide—their own.
For the Israelites who invaded it, Canaan was a land of milk and honey given to them by their deity, as promised, after they killed the Canaanites. Their act of genocide was understood by the deity as a proof of faithfulness. ("Thou shall")
That this genocide provides the epistemological foundation for the three biblical religions should make us shudder, because it explains why we have witnessed thousands of years of violence generated and condoned by bibliolators.
When, for example, New Canaan High School's class of 1980 Ann Coulter exclaimed just after 911, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," she was safely within the boundaries of biblical theology. Hers was a statement uttered millions of times by Catholic Crusaders, Protestant Victorians, and of course the USA's frontier ministers.
As it did for other western cultures, the story of Canaan provides the plot, characters and rationale for Anglo-American imperialism. Again, thanks go to Ann for making the connection obvious. Speaking to college students about the US attack on Iraqi civilians, she said: "Suppose, for the sake of argument, this was a war just for oil. We need oil. Why not go to war for oil?" Yeah, why not—Alan Greenspan confirmed her "truth".
(How golden calf!) Invaders have to commit genocide before they steal the property of the indigenous people—and that's the story of Canaan. The less obvious, "transcendental" part of the story involves the way invaders invent a deity so they can turn their genocide into an apotheosis, and how they do turn their crime against humanity into a sacred act, and proof, of perfect faith in that deity. The madness of all this is obvious, but it is worth reminding ourselves that to do what I have just done has traditionally been considered blasphemy, punishable by death. To question and criticize the "moral" of this story is to magically become a Canaanite, ripe for targeting and annihilation. This is why we hear the bible-deity invoked promiscuously by our politicians and militarists and, more generally, why priests accompany mass-murderers in battle. Bristle at what I just wrote, but by the doctrine of just war aggressive violence is illegal. Only defensive violence is justified. That makes most of the wars the USA has engaged in illegal. Sherman's March to the Sea was legal and his troops did not commit murder bc it was the Slaveocracy who attacked us; the Union's violence was defensive. Kennedy's attacks on the Vietnamese, and Bush's attacks on Iraqis, were illegal and their troops committed crimes against humanity. Our politicians invoke deity in a tragic attempt to transcendentalize, to claim apotheosis for, these grave misdeeds. The deity is used to escape justice. In US history, the invaders imagined themselves to be Israelites and others to be Canaanites. They still do, and of a kind, credit goes to Coulter for making this obvious. To become a New Canaanite, one kills Canaanites, steals their property, erases their history and claims the deity blesses you for it.
On this indigenous Day, that does sound familiar ... When she says “Want to make liberals angry? Defend the United States,” the USA Coulter defends the fatherland from whence she was whelped, whose genocidal acts she praises as proof of her faith. After all, without the genocides she glories in, her deity would not exist. (Madness—all of it.)
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