Colonialism In Palestine

The process of colonialism, no matter where it takes place, is horrendous; thousands of lives are lost in the process of “improving” the lives of the indigenous people. In the graphic novel, Palestine, author, and journalist Joe Sacco recounts his experiences and the stories of those he met while spending two months in the Occupied Territories—during the first intifada against the Israeli occupation. The experiences of the Palestinian people Sacco interviews allows readers to discern the tribulations of the Palestinian people, and draw parallels to those of the indigenous populations in Africa since the colonial era. Both Palestinians and Africans demonstrate parallel experiences of colonialism through movement restrictions placed upon them
In the 1950s, various acts set constraints on the indigenous people of Africa. For example, the Bantu Education Act of 1953 attempted to limit the instruction of English to Africans. The Population Registration Act was the first act created and led to the creation of identification cards. This creation allowed Africans to travel, but with limitations. The identification card permitted Africans to visit designated areas for a certain amount of time. Likewise, Palestinians had a time interval in which they could not leave their homes. In several interviews and his personal experience, too, Sacco reveals that Palestinians had a curfew. Whenever the Israelis desired, they could declare when curfew is and prevent anyone from leaving their homes. On one occasion, something that seems as harmless as a curfew results in a fatality, “’Our cousin died immediately. My brother was shot in the abdomen, and he made it back into the house,” describes the brother of the young man who died, “The soldiers put a curfew on the village and we couldn’t leave the house to take him to the hospital… He was with his mother and father. He bled to death in three hours”’ (70). While this twenty-one-year-old man bled to death, the settler who killed him was release the same day he went to court. Although the restrictions on the indigenous people of Africa are not as horrific—they just simply
After King Leopold II of Belgium was awarded Congo as his personal property, he needed to raise civilization and extend trade. While “successfully” executing the extension of trade and raising civilization, King Leopold II took vast amounts of wealth from the natives—which, of course, no one notices. Soon after, King Leopold II established the Force Publique, a colonial militia, which raided villages in Congo and razed them. This raid caused the indigenous people to go into labor farms, allowing King Leopold II to make as much profit from rubber as he possibly can. The more supply of rubber present, the more the price reduces. Thus, laborers began to receive no pay, ultimately becoming slaves. Just as the King took the profitable trees in Congo from the natives, the Israeli soldiers eliminated the profitable olive trees from the Palestinians. In an interview, a man reveals to Sacco that the olive tree is their main source of living as they use the oil for their food and buy clothes with the oil they sell. That is all they have; the Israelis do not provide people from the man’s village with a permit to work in Israel (61). Sacco provides readers with an image of the man with tears in his eyes as he divulges that the Israelis forced him to cut down seventeen of his trees—trees that he considers equal to his sons (62). By providing this illustration, the audience